How a cabin fuelled a court action over Ontario Métis harvesting rights

The Ontario government just ordered the dismantling of a cabin at the heart of a court challenge over Métis harvesting rights — but the move isn't enough to resolve the argument over Indigenous rights and traditional territories.

The story begins sometime in 2018, when Métis Nation of Ontario (MNO) member Marc Descoteaux started building a cabin on Pond Lake in the Temagami area. 

The province's Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR) authorized the building of this hunting structure on Crown land because of Descoteaux's Indigenous heritage. 

The area is part of the Métis Nation of Ontario's traditional harvesting territory, but it's also on the traditional territory of Temagami First Nation and Teme-Augama Anishnabai and neither were consulted before it was built. 

The cabin and the Métis Harvesting Agreement

In the years that followed, the two Anishnaabe groups repeatedly asked the province and the Métis nation to clarify how and why this cabin had been authorized, without success.

This is how the case landed before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in November 2023. 

According to Teme-Augama Anishnabai and Temagami First Nation, the province initially told them to communicate with the MNO to address concerns about cabins being built in "shared territories." 

In the correspondence that followed, the First Nations argued there are no Métis communities with established rights in their territory. 

The Ontario government responded by sharing historic community reports produced by the Métis nation, and declined to offer documents that would explain how the province assessed the evidence presented in those reports. 

Ontario orders the dismantling of the structure

Earlier this month, the MNR reached out to the two Temagami groups to inform them a letter had been sent to Descoteaux requesting the removal of the cabin and the restoration of the site to its original state. 

The MNR said it reached that decision after receiving a letter from the MNO stating it does not support the cabin. 

"It is the ministry's position that, absent community support, there is no authority for a cabin at the location in question," it read. 

In a press release, the Métis nation says it never authorized the building of the cabin in the first place. 

It says one local leader provided a letter to the province in 2018 expressing support for the Pond Lake cabin, after another had turned down the same request a few months prior and that the MNO's regional consultation committee was "unaware of the cabin's construction until very recently."

The Métis nation asks to be added to the litigation

While the legality of the cabin is what prompted the court action, the question at the heart of the case now is whether MNO members have harvesting rights in Temagami First Nation and Teme Augama Anishnabai's traditional territories.

"There were never Métis people here nor was there ever a Métis community in N'dakimenan [our land]," argues Teme Augama Anishnabai Chief Michael Paul.

"That means we have to continue our fight against the Métis harvesting agreement."

The two Temagami communities now intend to amend their court action to remove Descoteaux, and focus on the legality of the Métis harvesting agreement.

As for the MNO, it has asked to be added to the litigation to protect and defend the harvesting framework agreement it has with the province.