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Page 31
It might be only a year before Aboriginal people across the country will be asked to change the way they use their firearms.
New gun regulations in Bill C-68 are scheduled to become law sometime in 1998, and Aboriginal leaders are wary of any changes that may touch on their treaty rights.
Currently, the federal Justice Department, through the Canadian Firearms Centre, has drafted several Aboriginal adaptations to the proposed bill.
The adaptations place loose restrictions on Aboriginal gun users.
Whether or not those adaptations will be accepted by Aboriginal communities remains to be seen, but some indications of the response should come from a firearms conference being held at the end of October in Edmonton.
Funded by the national firearms centre and organized by the Alberta Confederacy of Treaty Six First Nations, the conference will draw 17 chiefs and 17 Elders from each of the 17 First Nations within the Treaty Six area. Representatives from the firearms centre, the province's chief firearms officer, and the Alberta Fish and Game Association are scheduled to attend. An invitation has also been sent to federal Justice Minister Anne McLellan.
Since the gun law was first announced in early 1995, Aboriginal leaders have openly opposed it. During hearings and submissions held by the federal government late in 1995, the Native response was that Aboriginal people should be excluded from the law.
Dave Scott, an organizer of the conference, said in most cases the feelings are still the same today, but Native people also have a lot of questions they want answered.
He said there has been very little feedback given to Native people since the hearings in 1995. Scott hopes that government representatives invited to the conference will shed some light on what is going on.
"One of the main purposes of the conference is to have them outline to us exactly what these regulations are," said Scott.
Thomas Piche, who is also helping to organize the conference, said Aboriginal people have felt left out of the process.
The conference is a chance for them to get caught up and provide some input into how they would like the new rules to affect them.
Piche believes that one of the focal points will be gun control. If there is going to be a new law, Native communities may want to handle their guns and a registry themselves.
"Each reserve could have their own firearms officer, get a safety program, and if there's a gun registry, this same person could look after it," he said.
Piche said the concern comes from the fear that being restricted by the new law would take away a treaty member's inherent right to hunt, fish and gather.
As it stands, the Aboriginal adaptations in the proposed bill would have a provincial firearms officer decide for an Aboriginal person if he or she can be considered as a subsistence hunter.
Piche said that is something that should be decided at a community level, not provincially.
Despite the level of concern over the proposed bill, Piche said the conference is not intended to be confrontational.
"This is a very complex issue and it will take a lot of patience and hopefully a lot of co-operation between the players," he said.
The first step is to get everyone up to speed. Native people just want to be included in any changes to Bill C-68, he said. They want to have their input recorded, he said.
"There's all kinds of things that can be done, but they have to talk to us and they haven't done that," he said.
The Ottawa headquarters of the firearms centre said consultations have been carried out with about100 Aboriginal groups in Canada over the last two years.
According to the centre, 50 Native groups had been met with by the end of 1995. The firearms centre reports it met with Treaty Six representatives in June of 1995.
In 1996, 40 more Aboriginal groups met with centre representatives to discuss the new bill.
Hanna Hruska of the firearms centre said the consultation process is not over, and more meetings like theone being held with the Treaty Six members will be held throughout the country.
As it stands, Bill C-68 has only been tabled, it has not been implemented and changes can be made to existing applications within it, she said.
After the conference, each chief is expected to present information to his own First Nation about what was learned. From there, input will be gathered from the Native communities and a formal plan of action will be drafted.
The conference will be held on Oct. 29 and 30. It is not a public function and only the invited guests will be admitted.
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