Mitchell v. M.N.R.

Mitchell v. M.N.R.
Collection
Supreme Court Judgments
Date
2001-05-24
Neutral citation
2001 SCC 33
Report
[2001] 1 SCR 911
Case number
27066
Judges
McLachlin, Beverley; Gonthier, Charles Doherty; Iacobucci, Frank; Major, John C.; Binnie, William Ian Corneil; Arbour, Louise; LeBel, Louis
On appeal from
Federal Court of Appeal
Subjects
Constitutional law
Evidence
Notes
SCC Case Information: 27066
Decision Content
Mitchell v. M.N.R., [2001] 1 S.C.R. 911, 2001 SCC 33
Minister of National Revenue Appellant
v.
Grand Chief Michael Mitchell also known as Kanentakeron Respondent
and
The Attorney General of Quebec,
the Attorney General for New Brunswick,
the Attorney General of Manitoba,
the Attorney General of British Columbia,
the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake,
the Assembly of First Nations and
the Union of New Brunswick Indians Interveners
Indexed as: Mitchell v. M.N.R.
Neutral citation: 2001 SCC 33.
File No.: 27066.
2000: June 16; 2001: May 24.
Present: McLachlin C.J. and Gonthier, Iacobucci, Major, Binnie, Arbour and LeBel JJ.
on appeal from the federal court of appeal
Constitutional law – Aboriginal rights – Right to bring goods across St. Lawrence River for purposes of trade – Whether Mohawks of Akwesasne have right to bring goods into Canada from U.S. for trading purposes without paying customs duties -- Whether claimed right incompatible with Canadian sovereignty – Constitution Act, 1982, s. 35(1) .
Evidence -- Aboriginal rights – Evidence to be adduced to establish aboriginal right – Assessment of evidence in aboriginal claims.
The respondent is a Mohawk of Akwesasne and a descendant of the Mohawk nation, one of the polities of the Iroquois Confederacy prior to the arrival of Europeans. In 1988, the respondent crossed the international border bearing goods purchased in the United States. He declared the goods to Canadian customs agents but asserted that aboriginal and treaty rights exempted him from paying duty. He was permitted to continue into Canada but advised he would be charged duty. The goods except some motor oil were presented to the Mohawk community of Tyendinaga as gifts. The oil was taken to a store in Akwesasne for resale to members of that community. The respondent was served with a claim for unpaid duty and sought declaratory relief. The Federal Court, Trial Division held that the respondent had an aboriginal right to cross the border freely without having to pay customs duties on goods destined for personal and community use as well as for noncommercial scale trade with other First Nations. The Federal Court of Appeal affirmed an aboriginal right to bring goods into Canada duty-free, subject to limitations based on the evidence of the traditional range of Mohawk trading.
Held: The appeal should be allowed. The claimed aboriginal right has not been established. The respondent must pay duty on the goods imported into Canada.
Per McLachlin C.J. and Gonthier, Iacobucci, Arbour and LeBel JJ.: Under English colonial law, the pre-existing laws and interests of aboriginal societies were absorbed into the common law as rights upon the Crown’s assertion of sovereignty unless these rights were surrendered, extinguished or inconsistent with Crown sovereignty. The enactment of s. 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982 accorded constitutional status to existing aboriginal and treaty rights, including the aboriginal rights recognized at common law. However, the government retained the jurisdiction to limit aboriginal rights for justifiable reasons in the pursuit of substantial and compelling public objectives. The test to establish an aboriginal right focuses on the integral, defining features of the relevant aboriginal society before the Crown’s assertion of sovereignty. A claimant must prove that a modern practice, custom or tradition has a reasonable degree of continuity with a practice, tradition or custom that was in existence prior to contact with the Europeans. The practice, tradition or custom must have been integral to the distinctive culture of the aboriginal people in the sense that it distinguished or characterized their traditional culture and lay at the core of the aboriginal people’s identity.
The initial step is to ascertain the true nature of the claimed right, without assessing its merits or artificially broadening or narrowing the right. This requires examining (1) the nature of the action which the applicant is claiming was done pursuant to an aboriginal right; (2) the nature of the governmental legislation or action alleged to infringe the right, i.e. the conflict between the claim and the limitation; and (3) the ancestral traditions and practices relied upon to establish the right. An application of these factors in this case suggests that the claimed right is properly characterized as the right to bring goods across the Canada-United States boundary at the St. Lawrence River for purposes of trade. The claim is for a right to trade simpliciter and necessarily entails a mobility right because the right to bring goods across the St. Lawrence River for purposes of trade involves travel. The right should not be qualified as a right to bring goods without paying duty or taxes because such a limitation should be considered at the infringement stage. Technically, the right should be characterized as a right to bring goods across the St. Lawrence River as opposed to the international border, a construction of newcomers. However, in modern terms, the river and the border are equivalent.
Aboriginal rights claims give rise to inherent evidentiary difficulties. However, the rights protected under s. 35(1) should not be rendered illusory by imposing an impossible burden of proof. The rules of evidence must therefore be applied flexibly, in a manner commensurate with the inherent difficulties posed by aboriginal claims. Since claimants must demonstrate features of pre-contact society in the absence of written records, oral histories may offer otherwise unavailable evidence of ancestral practices and aboriginal perspectives. Oral histories are admissible as evidence where they are both useful and reasonably reliable, subject always to the exclusionary discretion of the trial judge. In determining the usefulness and reliability of oral histories, judges must resist facile assumptions based on Eurocentric traditions of gathering and passing on historical facts. Here, the parties presented evidence from historians and archeologists. The aboriginal perspective was supplied by oral histories of elders such as the respondent. The respondent’s testimony, confirmed by archaeological and historical evidence, was useful and the trial judge did not err in finding the respondent’s evidence to be credible and reliable.
There are no precise rules or absolute principles governing the interpretation or weighing of evidence in support of aboriginal claims. The laws of evidence must ensure that the aboriginal perspective is given due weight but consciousness of the special nature of aboriginal claims does not negate general principles governing evidence. Claims must still be established on persuasive evidence demonstrating validity on a balance of probabilities. In the present case, the evidence indicates that the Mohawks travelled north on occasion and trade was a distinguishing feature of their society. The evidence does not show, however, an ancestral practice of trading north of the St. Lawrence River. Mohawk trade at the time of contact fell predominantly along an east-west axis. The relevant evidence supporting the claim consists of a single ceremonial knife, treaties that make no reference to pre-existing trade, and the mere fact of Mohawk involvement in the fur trade. While appellate courts grant considerable deference to findings of fact made by trial judges, the finding of a cross-border trading right in this case represents, in view of the paucity of the evidence, a “palpable and overriding error”. Evidentiary principles must be sensitively applied to aboriginal claims but they cannot be strained beyond reason.
In any event, even if deference were granted to the trial judge’s finding of pre-contact trade relations between the Mohawks and First Nations north of the St. Lawrence River, the evidence does not establish this northerly trade as a defining feature of the Mohawk culture. The claimed right implicates an international boundary and, consequently, geographical considerations are clearly relevant to the determination of whether the trading in this case is integral to the Mohawks’ culture. Even if the trial judge’s generous interpretation of the evidence were accepted, it discloses negligible transportation and trade of goods by the Mohawks north of the St. Lawrence River prior to contact. This trade was not vital to the Mohawks’ collective identity. It follows that no aboriginal right to bring goods across the border for the purposes of trade has been established.
Since the respondent has not proven his claim to an aboriginal right, there is no need to comment on the extent, if any, to which colonial laws of sovereign succession are relevant to the definition of aboriginal rights under s. 35(1) of the Constitution Act, 1982 .
Per Major and Binnie JJ.: It is agreed that even if Mohawks did occasionally trade goods across the St. Lawrence River with First Nations to the north prior to contact, this practice was neither a defining feature of their culture nor vital to their collective identity. There are, however, additional considerations for allowing the appeal. In this case, an issue arises about the sovereignty implications of the international trading and mobility right claimed by the respondent as a citizen of the Iroquois Confederacy.
Akwesasne lies at the jurisdictional epicentre of the St. Lawrence River and straddles the Canada-United States border, as well as provincial and state borders. This crisscrossing of borders through the Mohawk community goes beyond mere inconvenience and constitutes a significant burden on everyday living. The Mohawk people seek to diminish the border disruption in their lives, reunite a divided community, and find economic advantage in the international boundary. That economic value of their claim is created by non-aboriginal society is not fatal to its existence. A frozen rights theory is incompatible with s. 35(1) and aboriginal rights are capable of growth and evolution.
An aboriginal right must be derived from pre-contact activity that was an element of a practice, custom or tradition integral to the aboriginal community’s distinctive culture. Traditional Mohawk homelands were in the Mohawk Valley (N.Y. State) but the Mohawks historically travelled as far north as the St. Lawrence River valley. In that era, the Mohawks were, and acted as, a fully autonomous people within the Iroquois Confederacy. Territorial boundaries changed as a militarily powerful Iroquois Confederacy spread to and along the St. Lawrence River displacing other aboriginal inhabitants. While none of the boundaries between First Nation Territories in pre-contact times corresponded with the present international boundary at Akwesasne, such boundaries existed and, under traditional practices and customs, they were respected by the Mohawks in times of peace.
Counsel for the respondent does not dispute Canadian sovereignty. He seeks Mohawk autonomy within the broader framework of Canadian sovereignty. The respondent's claim is not just about physical movement of people or goods in and about Akwesasne. It is about the Mohawks' aspiration to live as if the international boundary did not exist.
Whereas historically the Crown may have been portrayed as an entity across the seas with which aboriginal people could scarcely be expected to identify, this was no longer the case in 1982 when the s. 35(1) reconciliation process was established. The Constitution was patriated and all aspects of our sovereignty became firmly located within our borders. If the principle of “merged sovereignty” articulated by the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples is to have any true meaning, it must include at least the idea that aboriginal and non-aboriginal Canadians together form a sovereign entity with a measure of common purpose and united effort. It is this new entity, as inheritor of the historical attributes of sovereignty, with which existing aboriginal and treaty rights must be reconciled. The constitutional objective is reconciliation not mutual isolation. What is significant is that the Royal Commission itself sees aboriginal peoples as full participants with non-aboriginal peoples in a shared Canadian sovereignty. Aboriginal peoples do not stand in opposition to, nor are they subjugated by, Canadian sovereignty. They are part of it.
The respondent's claim presents two defining elements. He asserts a trading and mobility right across the international boundary and he attaches this right to his current citizenship not of Canada but of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) Confederacy with its capital in Onondaga, New York State.
A treaty right is an affirmative promise by the Crown which will be interpreted generously and enforced in a way that upholds the honour of the Crown. In the case of aboriginal rights, there is no historical event comparable to the treaty-making process in which the Crown negotiated the right or obligation sought to be enforced. The respondent's claim is rooted in practices which he says long preceded the Mohawks' first contact with Europeans in 1609.
British colonial law presumed that the Crown intended to respect aboriginal rights that were neither unconscionable nor incompatible with the Crown’s sovereignty. Courts have extended this recognition to practices, customs or traditions integral to the aboriginal community’s distinctive culture. While care must be taken not to carry forward doctrines of British colonial law into interpretations of s. 35(1) without careful reflection, s. 35(1) was not a wholesale repudiation of the common law. The notion of incompatibility with Crown sovereignty was a defining characteristic of sovereign succession and therefore a limitation on the scope of aboriginal rights. For example, important as they may have been to the Mohawk identity as a people, it could not be said that pre-contact warrior activities gave rise under successor regimes to a legal right under s. 35(1) to engage in military adventures on Canadian territory. This concept of sovereign incompatibility continues to be an element in the s. 35(1) analysis, albeit a limitation that will be sparingly applied. For the most part, the protection of practices, traditions and customs that are distinctive to aboriginal cultures in Canada does not raise legitimate sovereignty issues at the definitional stage.
With the creation of the international boundary in 1783, Akwesasne became the point at which British (and later Canadian) sovereignty came face to face with the sovereignty of the U.S. Control over the mobility of persons and goods across a border has always been a fundamental attribute and incident of sovereignty. States are expected to exercise their authority over borders in the public interest. The duty cannot be abdicated to the vagaries of an earlier regime whose sovereignty has been eclipsed. Therefore, the international trading/mobility right claimed by the respondent is incompatible with the historical attributes of Canadian sovereignty. Since the claimed aboriginal right did not survive the transition to non-Mohawk sovereignty, there was nothing in existence in 1982 to which s. 35(1) protection of existing aboriginal rights could attach.
This conclusion is not at odds with the purpose of s. 35(1) to bring about a reconciliation of the interests of aboriginal peoples with Canadian sovereignty. Aboriginal people are part of Canadian sovereignty and the accommodation of their rights is not a zero-sum relationship between minority rights and citizenship. Affirmation of the sovereign interest of Canadians as a whole, including aboriginal peoples, should not in this case be seen as a loss of legitimate constitutional space for aboriginal peoples. To extend constitutional protection to the respondent's claim would overshoot the purpose of s. 35(1) . In terms of sovereign incompatibility, the respondent’s claim relates to national interests that all of us have in common rather than to distinctive interests that for some purposes differentiate an aboriginal community. Reconciliation of these interests in this particular case favours an affirmation of our collective sovereignty. This conclusion neither forecloses nor endorses any position on the compatibility or incompatibility of internal self-governing institutions of First Nations with Crown sovereignty, either past or present.
Cases Cited
By McLachlin C.J.
Applied: Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, [1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010, aff’g in part [1993] 5 W.W.R. 97; R. v. Van der Peet, [1996] 2 S.C.R. 507; R. v. Pamajewon, [1996] 2 S.C.R. 821; referred to: R. v. Sparrow, [1990] 1 S.C.R. 1075; Guerin v. The Queen, [1984] 2 S.C.R. 335; Calder v. Attorney-General of British Columbia, [1973] S.C.R. 313; Mabo v. Queensland (1992), 175 C.L.R. 1; St. Catherine’s Milling and Lumber Co. v. The Queen (1888), 14 App. Cas. 46; R. v. Gladstone, [1996] 2 S.C.R. 723; Watt v. Liebelt, [1999] 2 F.C. 455; R. v. Campbell (2000), 6 Imm. L.R. (3d) 1; R. v. Côté, [1996] 3 S.C.R. 139; R. v. Adams, [1996] 3 S.C.R. 101; R. v. Nikal, [1996] 1 S.C.R. 1013; R. v. Badger, [1996] 1 S.C.R. 771; Simon v. The Queen, [1985] 2 S.C.R. 387; R. v. Levogiannis, [1993] 4 S.C.R. 475; R. v. Marshall, [1999] 3 S.C.R. 456; R. v. N.T.C. Smokehouse Ltd., [1996] 2 S.C.R. 672; Inasa v. Oshodi, [1934] A.C. 99; R. v. Jacobs, [1999] 3 C.N.L.R. 239.
By Binnie J.
Applied: R. v. Sparrow, [1990] 1 S.C.R. 1075; R. v. Van der Peet, [1996] 2 S.C.R. 507; R. v. N.T.C. Smokehouse Ltd., [1996] 2 S.C.R. 672; explained: Calder v. Attorney-General of British Columbia, [1973] S.C.R. 313; distinguished: Watt v. Liebelt, [1999] 2 F.C. 455; referred to: R. v. Gladstone, [1996] 2 S.C.R. 723; R. v. Adams, [1996] 3 S.C.R. 101; United States v. Garrow, 88 F.2d 318 (1937); R. v. Côté, [1996] 3 S.C.R. 139; Attorney General for Canada v. Cain, [1906] A.C. 542; Worcester v. Georgia, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 515 (1832); R. v. Pamajewon, [1996] 2 S.C.R. 821; Nowegijick v. The Queen, [1983] 1 S.C.R. 29; Natural Parents v. Superintendent of Child Welfare, [1976] 2 S.C.R. 751; Dick v. The Queen, [1985] 2 S.C.R. 309; Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, [1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010, aff’g in part [1993] 5 W.W.R. 97; Attorney-General for Ontario v. Attorney-General for Canada, [1912] A.C. 571; Campbell v. British Columbia (Attorney General) (2000), 79 B.C.L.R. (3d) 122, 2000 BCSC 1123; Corbiere v. Canada (Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs), [1999] 2 S.C.R. 203; R. v. Taylor (1981), 62 C.C.C. (2d) 227; R. v. Badger, [1996] 1 S.C.R. 771; R. v. Marshall, [1999] 3 S.C.R. 456; Campbell v. Hall (1774), 1 Cowp. 204, 98 E.R. 1045; Amodu Tijani v. Southern Nigeria (Secretary), [1921] 2 A.C. 399; Oyekan v. Adele, [1957] 2 All E.R. 785; Guerin v. The Queen, [1984] 2 S.C.R. 335; Mabo v. Queensland (1992), 175 C.L.R. 1; Wik Peoples v. Queensland (1996), 187 C.L.R. 1; R. v. Eninew (1984), 12 C.C.C. (3d) 365; R. v. Hare (1985), 20 C.C.C. (3d) 1; R. v. Simmons, [1988] 2 S.C.R. 495; R. v. Jacques, [1996] 3 S.C.R. 312, Almeida-Sanchez v. United States, 413 U.S. 266 (1973); United States v. Ramsey, 431 U.S. 606 (1977); Chae Chan Ping v. United States, 130 U.S. 581 (1889); Ekiu v. United States, 142 U.S. 651 (1892); Fong Yue Ting v. United States, 149 U.S. 698 (1893); Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 30 U.S. (5 Pet.) 1 (1831); United States v. Wheeler, 435 U.S. 313 (1978); Akins v. United States, 551 F.2d 1222 (1977); Johnson v. M’Intosh, 21 U.S. (8 Wheat.) 543 (1823).
Statutes and Regulations Cited
Akwesasne Residents Remission Order, SOR/91-412.
Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms .
Constitution Act, 1867, s. 91(24) .
Constitution Act, 1982, s. 35(1) .
Convention (No. 169) concerning Indigenous and Tribal Peoples in Independent Countries. General Conference of the International Labour Organisation, June 27, 1989, Art. 32.
Customs Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. 1 (2nd Supp .), ss. 17 , 31 , 131 , 153 (c), 159 .
Customs Tariff, R.S.C. 1985, c. 41 (3rd Supp.).
Draft of the Inter-American Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, September 18, 1995, Art. 24.
Draft United Nations declaration on the rights of indigenous peoples. Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities, Res. 1994/45, Art. 35.
Immigration Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. I-2.
Royal Proclamation (1763), R.S.C. 1985, App. II, No.1.
Treaty of Paris (1763).
Treaty of Paris (1783).
Authors Cited
Barsh, Russel L., and James Y. Henderson. “The Supreme Court’s Van der Peet Trilogy: Naive Imperialism and Ropes of Sand” (1997), 42 McGill L.J. 993.
Blackstone, William. Commentaries on the Laws of England, 4th ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1770.
Borrows, John. “The Trickster: Integral to a Distinctive Culture” (1997), 8 Constitutional Forum 27.
Borrows, John. “Uncertain Citizens: Aboriginal Peoples and the Supreme Court” (2001), 80 Can. Bar Rev. 15.
Canada. House of Commons. Special Committee on Indian Self-Government. Indian Self-Government in Canada: Report of the Special Committee. Ottawa: Queen’s Printer for Canada, 1983.
Canada. National Film Board. Between Friends/Entre Amis. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1976.
Canada. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Partners in Confederation: Aboriginal Peoples, Self‑Government, and the Constitution. Ottawa: The Commission, 1993.
Canada. Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples. Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, vol. 2, Restructuring the Relationship. Ottawa: The Commission, 1996.
Greschner, Donna. “Aboriginal Women, the Constitution and Criminal Justice”, [1992] U.B.C. L. Rev. (Sp. ed.) 338.
Hogg, Peter W., and Mary Ellen Turpel. “Implementing Aboriginal Self-Government: Constitutional and Jurisdictional Issues” (1995), 74 Can. Bar Rev. 187.
Kymlicka, Will, and Wayne Norman, eds. Citizenship in Diverse Societies. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Nicholson, Norman L. The Boundaries of the Canadian Confederation. Toronto: Macmillan of Canada, 1979.
Richter, Daniel K. The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization. Chapel Hill, N.C.: University of North Carolina Press, 1992.
Ritchie, William A. The Archaeology of New York State, rev. ed., Harrison, N.Y.: Harbor Hill Books, 1980.
Slattery, Brian. “Making Sense of Aboriginal and Treaty Rights” (2000), 79 Can. Bar Rev. 196.
Slattery, Brian. “Understanding Aboriginal Rights” (1987), 66 Can. Bar Rev. 727.
Sopinka, John, and Sidney N. Lederman. The Law of Evidence in Civil Cases. Toronto: Butterworths, 1974.
Story, Joseph. Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States, 4th ed., vol. II. Boston: Little, Brown, 1873.
Vattel, Emer de. The Law of Nations; or, Principles of the Law of Nature, Applied to the Conduct and Affairs of Nations and Sovereigns, Book II, new edition by Joseph Chitty. London: S. Sweet, 1834.
Woodward, Jack. Native Law. Toronto: Carswell, 1994 (loose-leaf updated 2000, release 2).
APPEAL from a judgment of the Federal Court of Appeal, [1999] 1 F.C. 375, 167 D.L.R. (4th) 702, 233 N.R. 129, [1999] 1 C.N.L.R. 112, [1998] F.C.J. No. 1513 (QL), affirming in part a judgment of the Trial Division, [1997] 4 C.N.L.R. 103, 134 F.T.R. 1, [1997] F.C.J. No. 882 (QL). Appeal allowed.
Graham Garton, Q.C., and Sandra Phillips, for the appellant.
Peter W. Hutchins, Anjali Choksi, Micha J. Menczer and Paul Williams, for the respondent.
René Morin, for the intervener the Attorney General of Quebec.
Gabriel Bourgeois, for the intervener the Attorney General for New Brunswick.
Kenneth J. Tyler and Robert J. C. Deane, for the intervener the Attorney General of Manitoba.
Timothy Leadem and Kathryn Kickbush, for the intervener the Attorney General of British Columbia.
Murray Marshall and François Dandonneau, for the intervener the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake.
Jack R. London, Q.C., and Martin S. Minuk, for the intervener the Assembly of First Nations.
Henry J. Bear, for the intervener the Union of New Brunswick Indians.
The judgment of McLachlin C.J. and Gonthier, Iacobucci, Arbour and LeBel JJ. was delivered by
The Chief Justice --
I. Introduction
1 This case raises the issue of whether the Mohawk Canadians of Akwesasne have the right to bring goods into Canada from the United States for collective use and trade with other First Nations without paying customs duties. Grand Chief Michael Mitchell claims that his people have an aboriginal right that ousts Canadian customs law. The government replies that no such right exists, first because the evidence does not support it and second because such a right would be fundamentally contrary to Canadian sovereignty. At the heart of the case lies the question of the evidence that must be adduced to establish an aboriginal right.
2 Chief Mitchell is a Mohawk of Akwesasne, a Mohawk community located just west of Montreal, and a descendant of the Mohawk nation, one of the polities comprising the Iroquois Confederacy prior to the arrival of Europeans. On March 22, 1988, Chief Mitchell crossed the international border from the United States into Canada, arriving at the Cornwall customs office. He brought with him some blankets, bibles, motor oil, food, clothing, and a washing machine, all of which had been purchased in the United States. He declared the goods to the Canadian customs agents but asserted that he had aboriginal and treaty rights which exempted him from paying duty on the goods. After some discussion, the customs agents notified Chief Mitchell that he would be charged $142.88 in duty, and they permitted him to continue into Canada. Chief Mitchell, along with other Mohawks of Akwesasne, presented everything but the motor oil to the Mohawk community of Tyendinaga. The gifts were intended to symbolize the renewal of the historic trading relationship between the two communities. The oil was taken to a store in Akwesasne territory for resale to members of that community. In September of 1989, Chief Mitchell was served with a Notice of Ascertained Forfeiture claiming $361.64 for unpaid duty, taxes and penalties.
3 I conclude that the aboriginal right claimed has not been established. The sparse and tenuous evidence advanced in this case to prove the existence of pre-contact Mohawk trading north of the Canada-United States boundary simply cannot support the claimed right. Even if deference is paid to the trial judge on this finding, any such trade was clearly incidental, and not integral, to the Mohawk culture. As a result, Chief Mitchell must pay duty on the goods he imported to Canada.
II. Enactments
4 Constitution Act, 1982
35. (1) The existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada are hereby recognized and affirmed.
Customs Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. 1 (2nd Supp .)
17. (1) Imported goods are charged with duties thereon from the time of importation thereof until such time as the duties are paid or the charge is otherwise removed.
(2) Subject to this Act, the rates of duties on imported goods shall be the rates applicable to the goods at the time they are accounted for under subsection 32(1), (2) or (5).
(3) Whenever the importer of goods that have been released or any person authorized pursuant to paragraph 32(6)(a) to account for goods becomes liable under this Act to pay duties thereon, the owner of the goods at the time of release becomes jointly and severally liable, with the importer or person authorized, to pay the duties.
31. Subject to section 19, no goods shall be removed from a customs office, sufferance warehouse, bonded warehouse or duty free shop by any person other than an officer in the performance of his duties under this or any other Act of Parliament unless the goods have been released by an officer.
153. No person shall
...
(c) wilfully, in any manner, evade or attempt to evade compliance with any provision of this Act or evade or attempt to evade the payment of duties under this Act.
159. Every person commits an offence who smuggles or attempts to smuggle into Canada, whether clandestinely or not, any goods subject to duties, or any goods the importation of which is prohibited, controlled or regulated by or pursuant to this or any other Act of Parliament.
III. Decisions
5 At trial ((1997), 134 F.T.R. 1), McKeown J. declared that Chief Mitchell possesses an existing aboriginal but not a treaty right “to pass and repass freely across what is now the Canada-United States boundary including the right to bring goods from the United States into Canada for personal and community use without having to pay customs duties on those goods.... The aboriginal right includes the right to bring these goods from the United States into Canada for noncommercial scale trade with other First Nations” (p. 75). He found that the ancestors of the Akwesasne Mohawks lived in present-day New York State, with the Adirondack mountains representing the northern boundary of their territory. They travelled north into what is now Canada and crossed what is now the Canada-United States boundary, carrying with them goods for personal and community use. Further, he concluded that the area around Akwesasne was used by the Mohawks prior to the arrival of Europeans for the purposes of travel, diplomacy and trade. This history, he concluded, established an aboriginal right to bring goods across the present border free of duty, and to trade these goods with other First Nations.
6 McKeown J. accepted that the Mohawks, like other aboriginal societies of North America, were accustomed to the concept of boundaries and paying for the privilege of crossing arbitrary lines established by other peoples. However, he concluded that this did not negate a modern right to cross such boundaries duty-free because it merely constituted regulation of the underlying aboriginal right to bring goods across boundaries freely. The Customs Act did not extinguish this right because it too was merely regulatory.
7 The Federal Court of Appeal ([1999] 1 F.C. 375), per Sexton J.A., Isaac C.J. concurring, affirmed McKeown J.’s finding of an aboriginal right to bring goods into Canada duty-free, subject to limitations based on the evidence of the traditional range of Mohawk trading: the goods must have been purchased in New York State; the goods must be brought to a border crossing between New York and either Ontario or Quebec; and if destined for trade, such trade must be only with other aboriginal communities in those two provinces. Létourneau J.A. would have further narrowed the right by excluding a separate right of free passage across the border, requiring Mohawks seeking to exercise the right to report at the Cornwall customs office, and excluding a right to bring goods into Canada for trade purposes without the payment of customs duties.
IV. Issues
8 The issue on appeal is whether Chief Mitchell has an aboriginal right which precludes the imposition of duty under the Customs Act on certain imported goods. The issue can be addressed in the following manner:
A. What is the Nature of Aboriginal Rights?
B. What is the Aboriginal Right Claimed?
C. Has the Claimed Aboriginal Right Been Established?
(1) Evidentiary Concerns – Proving Aboriginal Rights
(a) Admissibility of Evidence in Aboriginal Right Claims
(b) The Interpretation of Evidence in Aboriginal Right Claims
(2) Does the Evidence Show an Ancestral Mohawk Practice of Trading North of the St. Lawrence River?
(3) Does the Evidence Establish that the Alleged Practice of Trading Across the St. Lawrence River Was Integral to Mohawk Culture and Continuous to the Present Day?
D. Is the Claimed Right Barred from Recognition as Inconsistent with Crown Sovereignty?
Because I conclude that Chief Mitchell has not established an aboriginal right, I need not address questions of extinguishment, infringement and justification.
V. Analysis
A. What is the Nature of Aboriginal Rights?
9 Long before Europeans explored and settled North America, aboriginal peoples were occupying and using most of this vast expanse of land in organized, distinctive societies with their own social and political structures. The part of North America we now call Canada was first settled by the French and the British who, from the first days of exploration, claimed sovereignty over the land on behalf of their nations. English law, which ultimately came to govern aboriginal rights, accepted that the aboriginal peoples possessed pre-existing laws and interests, and recognized their continuance in the absence of extinguishment, by cession, conquest, or legislation: see, e.g., the Royal Proclamation of 1763, R.S.C. 1985, App. II, No. 1, and R. v. Sparrow, [1990] 1 S.C.R. 1075, at p. 1103. At the same time, however, the Crown asserted that sovereignty over the land, and ownership of its underlying title, vested in the Crown: Sparrow, supra. With this assertion arose an obligation to treat aboriginal peoples fairly and honourably, and to protect them from exploitation, a duty characterized as “fiduciary” in Guerin v. The Queen, [1984] 2 S.C.R. 335.
10 Accordingly, European settlement did not terminate the interests of aboriginal peoples arising from their historical occupation and use of the land. To the contrary, aboriginal interests and customary laws were presumed to survive the assertion of sovereignty, and were absorbed into the common law as rights, unless (1) they were incompatible with the Crown’s assertion of sovereignty, (2) they were surrendered voluntarily via the treaty process, or (3) the government extinguished them: see B. Slattery, “Understanding Aboriginal Rights” (1987), 66 Can. Bar Rev. 727. Barring one of these exceptions, the practices, customs and traditions that defined the various aboriginal societies as distinctive cultures continued as part of the law of Canada: see Calder v. Attorney-General of British Columbia, [1973] S.C.R. 313, and Mabo v. Queensland (1992), 175 C.L.R. 1, at p. 57 (per Brennan J.), pp. 81-82 (per Deane and Gaudron JJ.), and pp. 182-83 (per Toohey J.).
11 The common law status of aboriginal rights rendered them vulnerable to unilateral extinguishment, and thus they were “dependent upon the good will of the Sovereign”: see St. Catherine’s Milling and Lumber Co. v. The Queen (1888), 14 App. Cas. 46 (P.C.), at p. 54. This situation changed in 1982, when Canada’s constitution was amended to entrench existing aboriginal and treaty rights: Constitution Act, 1982, s. 35(1) . The enactment of s. 35(1) elevated existing common law aboriginal rights to constitutional status (although, it is important to note, the protection offered by s. 35(1) also extends beyond the aboriginal rights recognized at common law: Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, [1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010, at para. 136). Henceforward, aboriginal rights falling within the constitutional protection of s. 35(1) could not be unilaterally abrogated by the government. However, the government retained the jurisdiction to limit aboriginal rights for justifiable reasons, in the pursuit of substantial and compelling public objectives: see R. v. Gladstone, [1996] 2 S.C.R. 723, and Delgamuukw, supra.
12 In the seminal cases of R. v. Van der Peet, [1996] 2 S.C.R. 507, and Delgamuukw, supra, this Court affirmed the foregoing principles and set out the test for establishing an aboriginal right. Since s. 35(1) is aimed at reconciling the prior occupation of North America by aboriginal societies with the Crown’s assertion of sovereignty, the test for establishing an aboriginal right focuses on identifying the integral, defining features of those societies. Stripped to essentials, an aboriginal claimant must prove a modern practice, tradition or custom that has a reasonable degree of continuity with the practices, traditions or customs that existed prior to contact. The practice, custom or tradition must have been “integral to the distinctive culture” of the aboriginal peoples, in the sense that it distinguished or characterized their traditional culture and lay at the core of the peoples’ identity. It must be a “defining feature” of the aboriginal society, such that the culture would be “fundamentally altered” without it. It must be a feature of “central significance” to the peoples’ culture, one that “truly made the society what it was” (Van der Peet, supra, at paras. 54-59 (emphasis in original)). This excludes practices, traditions and customs that are only marginal or incidental to the aboriginal society’s cultural identity, and emphasizes practices, traditions and customs that are vital to the life, culture and identity of the aboriginal society in question.
13 Once an aboriginal right is established, the issue is whether the act which gave rise to the case at bar is an expression of that right. Aboriginal rights are not frozen in their pre-contact form: ancestral rights may find modern expression. The question is whether the impugned act represents the modern exercise of an ancestral practice, custom or tradition.
B. What is the Aboriginal Right Claimed?
14 Before we can address the question of whether an aboriginal right has been established, we must first characterize the right claimed. The event giving rise to litigation merely represents an alleged exercise of an underlying right; it does not, in itself, tell us the scope of the right claimed. Therefore it is necessary to determine the nature of the claimed right. At this initial stage of characterization, the focus is on ascertaining the true nature of the claim, not assessing the merits of this claim or the evidence offered in its support.
15 In Van der Peet, supra, at para. 53, the majority of this Court provided three factors that should guide a court’s characterization of a claimed aboriginal right: (1) the nature of the action which the applicant is claiming was done pursuant to an aboriginal right; (2) the nature of the governmental legislation or action alleged to infringe the right, i.e. the conflict between the claim and the limitation; and (3) the ancestral traditions and practices relied upon to establish the right. The right claimed must be characterized in context and not distorted to fit the desired result. It must be neither artificially broadened nor narrowed. An overly narrow characterization risks the dismissal of valid claims and an overly broad characterization risks distorting the right by neglecting the specific culture and history of the claimant’s society: see R. v. Pamajewon, [1996] 2 S.C.R. 821.
16 Chief Mitchell characterizes his claim as the right to enter Canada from the United States with personal and community goods, without paying customs or duties, and the right to trade these goods with other First Nations. On the strength of this claimed right, he crossed the Canada-United States boundary with personal and community goods, the action giving rise to the case at bar. Although the motor oil was the only item transported by Chief Mitchell that was destined for resale, it can only be concluded that Chief Mitchell’s actions -- and his case -- focused in fact on trade. The claimants asserted that “trade and commerce [is] central to their soul”. Witness after witness was asked to describe historical Mohawk trading practices. Furthermore, when Chief Mitchell exercised his alleged right, all of the goods brought into Canada were trade-related: they were intended as gifts to seal a trade agreement with Tyendinaga and to signify renewed trading relations, in accordance with customary practice. Therefore the first factor, the action claimed as an exercise of an aboriginal right, suggests that the heart of the claim is the right to bring