Illegal hunting charges against seven members of the Innu Nation have been stayed in provincial court.
The charges date back to 2022, but the court ordered a stay this week due to delays that “violated our rights to be tried in a reasonable time” as per the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Innu said in a statement.
They note the province banned caribou hunting in Labrador in 2013, which they argue also violates their constitutionally-protected aboriginal rights.
Prote Poker, a former Grand Chief of the Innu Nation, is one of the accused.
He says now that the charges have been stayed, there is an opportunity for the province to “turn the page” on what the Innu call a “harmful and unconstitutional approach to caribou conservation.”
The Innu Nation says it welcomes the stay of the charges “as now there is a definitive resolution of both the 2014 and 2022 cases.”
(Photo courtesy Paddy Barry)
“The finality of the stay is a marked departure from the Crown’s attempt in 2023 to stay a related set of charges against Innu accused dating from 2014,” the Innu say.
In that case, the Criminal Code left open the possibility that trial could be resumed within a year of the stay, “raising the specter of the Innu hunters being dragged back into court for decade-old charges.”
“As the time period for the Crown to bring back the 2014 charges has now expired, with the court’s decision there is now no way the Innu hunters put on trial can be brought back to court on either the 2014 or 2022 charges. All outstanding cases are now finished.”
