Are Métis harvesting rights the same as Indian harvesting rights?
In general, yes. Métis and Indians are to get the same priority allocations to the harvest. However, in some places Indian harvesting rights have been extinguished or are now set out in a treaty. In such cases, Métis may have harvesting rights that are different. On the Prairie Provinces, Indians may have two layers of constitutional protection – s. 35 rights and the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement (NRTA). Métis, as a result of the recent Supreme Court of Canada decision in Blais, cannot claim the additional protection of the NRTA. This does not mean that Métis do not have constitutional protection for their harvesting rights in the Prairies, it simply means that Métis harvesting on the Prairies has only one layer of constitutional protection – s. 35.
