Duty to Consult Assignment Assistance
For First Nations and Metis communities, asserted or established right to hunt & fish, and to harvest wood for domestic uses; within their respective (and overlapping) traditional territories. You want to discuss three ways that these rights may be impacted, how they may be impacted and what activities may impact them.
Construction activities will pose disastrous environmental threats to the community. First Nations and Metis Communities have established rights on hunting and fishing as well as the freedom to harvest wood within their vicinities. Construction will expose their community to hazards like resource redistribution, increased discrimination, and gender effects.
Resource Distribution
Construction will alter the community’s traditional networks and distract them from the type of economy. There are chances that the region will be divided and follow after the capitalist economy. Housing activities will change their mode of life, exposing to modernization that may interfere with their communal rights to fish, hunt, and harvest wood.
In the rest parts of the country, the government retains strong ownership and control of resources such as timber and wood. Construction will only expose the region to a large part of the country.
Exposure to Discrimination
Immediate exposure of the Aboriginal communities to urban lives will prompt many issues such as discrimination. People will be forced to relinquish their traditional Indian rights and travel to urban for survival. Thus, the force of assimilation will also expose them to discrimination. In the process, environmental activities will have jeopardized their connections to family and territory.
Since these people occupy reserves, government activities like construction especially in railways and highway projects and power transmission lines will intersect reserve lands, thus leading to division and further reducing useable space. Land is a property of the Crown, which means that they do not consider their land as an asset. Hunting, wood harvesting, and fishing will be reduced because of the lack of space due to the government rights-of-way for its projects.
Gendered Effects
Aboriginal communities are yet to implement structured policies on ownership on a gendered basis. The effects of construction will also take on a gendered dimension. Considering that most Aborigine women on reserves encounter traditional issues like property ownership, construction will exacerbate the situation. Traditionally, women were to leave the reserve community they got married to in the event that their husbands passed on or abandon them. There are no precise laws dealing with on-reserve matrimonial property. Consequently, most of the women have been compelled to abandon their homesteads and property when they desert a reserve. Construction activities will continue to impoverish many women as they will leave villages without any resource.
Socio-economic Bad conditions
Et, on average, reserves present some of the most alarming conditions in Canada. They are typically isolated communities with high instances of poverty, substance abuse, suicide, unemployment, and mortality. Some reserves exhibit what has been controversially described as Third World conditions, due to inadequate housing and contaminated water supplies, among other things.
It is widely accepted that the cultural genocide and social disruption perpetrated over generations through displacement, discriminatory legislation such as the Indian Act, and federal programs such as the residential school system created enduring hardships among Aboriginal peoples and hindered the re-establishment of social networks and the development of stable communities.
For First Nations with established treaty rights, rights to reserve lands for the community’s exclusive use and benefit. You want to discuss three ways that these rights may be impacted, how they may be impacted and what activities may impact them.
Construction will expose the community to significant threats to the First Nation’s environment. Considering transmission line construction which happens to traverse the area, possible activities involve surveying/assessing; foundation installation; clearing and grading; structure assembly and erection; and reclamation. These effects will limit the First Nation’s ability to rightfully own and manage community land granted under established treaties.
Surveying Effect and Interference by Survey/construction Crews
The process of surveying will involve a variety of studies, tests, and assessments. The aim is to prepare the land for construction, and these processes will include conducting of engineering and legal surveys, soil testing, archaeological assessments, and environmental work and biological surveys.
Access to The Project’s location is required to conduct these studies. The majority of the Reference Route from Shunia to Wawa will be accessed via the original East-West Tie Line access roads and the existing ROW. However, within The Park, the access roads and ROW have been allowed to re-vegetate and may not provide suitable access. Therefore, ROW access may be required. This could involve cutting a centreline along the ROW of the Reference Route within The Park, wide enough for an ATV for studies.
Furthermore, detailed test pitting on a regular grid system would be carried out in regions with high archaeological capacity that would be disturbed by construction. This process of the survey will ultimately interfere with wilderness users ad they will criss-cross with the survey crews on a regular basis. Aboriginal treaties allow residents to own and make good use of land such as the Aboriginal youth camp, which will likely fall prey to surveyors. Residents will lose traditional land use rights.
Clearing and Grading Effects-Introduction of Weeds and Loss of Wildlife
The extent through which clearing may move will be determined by applicable codes, rules, and regulations to maintain safe and reliable operation of the line. The importance of clearing is to facilitate access to roads, the ROW and lay down areas. In some regions, there may be a temporary widening of the ROW. Engineering surveys will determine the extent of clearing in a given construction package. The role of surveyors will involve flagging the boundaries in the area being worked upon.
Aborigines have the rights to use their traditional lands for every meaningful purpose. The process of clearing will expose the land to many weeds as well as the loss of wildlife. Similarly, the land will lose its value due to the destruction of biodiversities such as bird species and deforestation. Wildlife migration will be disrupted, eventually limiting the locals’ longtime pleasure in traditional lifestyle.