The $300,000 taxpayer funded dead duck?

Metis Decision May Have National Impact

More than 2 1/2 years after the trial began, a Brandon judge is expected to deliver a decision in an historic Métis hunting rights case.

Will Neal Goodon’s lawyer, Jean Teillet, informed the Brandon Sun that Judge John Combs is expected to deliver his potentially precedent-setting decision in Brandon court on Thursday.“It’s been a long time,” Goodon said on Wednesday. “We’re confident, but you just never know until the judge makes his final decision.”

Goodon, 40, has pleaded not guilty to illegally possessing captured or killed wildlife under the province’s Wildlife Act.

His trial has proceeded on an intermittent basis since May of 2006, with defence and Crown counsel finally making closing arguments in November 2007.

The Crown and defence agree that Goodon shot a ringneck duck near Sharpe Lake on October 19, 2004. He told a Manitoba Conservation officer he shot the bird with the authority of his Manitoba Métis Federation Métis Harvester Identification Card, which he said nullifies the need for a provincial licence.

The so-called Powley decision also played a prominent role in closing arguments. Steve and Roddy Powley were charged after they killed a bull moose outside of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, in 1993 and on September 19, 2003, the Supreme Court upheld the Métis family’s right to hunt.

However, the Crown has argued the Powley decision applies only to a specific location with a consistent history that pre-dates European rule and Metis hunting cases have to be resolved on a community-by-community basis.

The Crown also argued that it was the Red River community that used the Turtle Mountain area as early as 1820 and the region formed part of their traditional territory.

Their Metis harvesting rights were extinguished when the Red River settlement entered Confederation by negotiating and passing the Manitoba Act, the Crown argued.