Flawed Precedent

Book excerpt: In 1888, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ruled in St. Catherine’s Milling and Lumber Company v. The Queen, a case involving the Saulteaux people’s land rights in Ontario. This precedent-setting case would define the legal contours of Aboriginal title in Canada for almost a hundred years, despite the racist assumptions about Indigenous peoples at the heart of the case. In Flawed Precedent, preeminent legal scholar Kent McNeil provides a compelling account of this contentious case. He begins by delving into the historical and ideological context of the 1880s. He then examines the trial in detail, demonstrating how prejudicial attitudes towards Indigenous peoples influenced the decision. He further discusses the effects that St. Catherine’s had on law and policy until the 1970s when its authority was finally questioned in Calder, then in Delgamuukw, Marshall/Bernard, Tsilhqot’in, and other key rulings. He also provides an informative analysis of the current judicial understanding of Aboriginal title in Canada, now driven by evidence of Indigenous law and land use rather than by the discarded prejudicial assumptions of a bygone era.