Determining Aboriginal and Treaty Right Impacts in Regulatory Processes

This project will consider how impacts on Aboriginal and Treaty rights have been addressed in Environmental Impact Assessments and other regulatory processes in BC and Alberta. The impacts being assessed include destruction of areas important for hunting, fishing, trapping, or spiritual purposes, as well as prohibitions to accessing these and other types of important areas. This research will address a gap wherein the methods for determining such impacts are not always explicitly defined. The research objectives are to 1) discover how often these regulatory documents include statements regarding Aboriginal and Treaty rights; and, 2) in those documents wherein such statements are included, discover whether there was an explicit methodology used in their determination; and 3) record, compare, and contrast these methodologies in a formal report. The expected results are that the majority of regulatory documents do not include explicit methodologies, and in those that do, these will vary considerable in scale and scope. This will be relevant to Kwusen (partner organization) because it will provide detailed, comparative data on how potential impacts to Aboriginal and Treaty rights are being assessed in BC and Alberta. TO BE CONT’D

Faculty Supervisor:

Michael Asch

Student:

Joshua Hazelbower

Partner:

Kwusen Research & Media

Discipline:

Sociology

Sector:

Natural resources

University:

University of Victoria