ST. JOHN, NB – On May 10th, 2024 former National Chief Del Riley spoke to a packed house at the Gitpu trading post at 91 Russell Street. Chief Riley was in St. John to deliver a letter to various local authorities informing them of his correspondence with Public Safety Minister, Kris Austin regarding the April 26th, 2024 raid on the Gitpu Trading Post by Public Safety officers.
As Chief Riley noted in his letter to Minister Austin, “the lands on which the city of Saint John is built thus remain unceded Indian lands that the Crown, in the Royal Proclamation of 1763 identified as “lands reserved for Indians.” These lands have never been sold or surrendered to the Crown by the Maliseet or the Mi’kmaq.” As such, Chief Riley – who personally negotiated the inclusion of Sections 25 and 35 protections for Aboriginal and treaty rights in the Canadian constitution – informed the Minister that Mi’kmaq entrepreneurs still have every right to “live upon, use and enjoy in accordance with their customs and conventions.”
This specifically includes the right, as outlined in the 1752 Peace and Friendship Treaty that “the said Tribe of Indians shall not be hindered from, but have free liberty of Hunting & Fishing as usual: and that if they shall think a Truckhouse needful at the River Chibenaccadie or any other place of their resort, they shall have the same built and proper Merchandize lodged therein, to be Exchanged for what the Indians shall have to dispose of, and that in the mean time the said Indians shall have free liberty to bring for Sale to Halifax or any other Settlement within this Province, Skins, feathers, fowl, fish or any other thing they shall have to sell, where they shall have liberty to dispose thereof to the best Advantage.”