R v Lamb, 2018 NBQB 213

This case was heard in the New Brunswick Court of Queen’s Bench, Trial Division.

The Appellant, Rosemary Lamb, had been charged with hunting moose out of season. Ms. Lamb was a Caucasian woman who, years earlier, had married a Mi'kmaw man who was a member of Esgenoopetitj First Nation. Ms. Lamb had since divorced her former husband, moved away from Esgenoopetitj, remarried, and settled elsewhere, but she asserted that because her previous marriage had given her status under the Indian Act, and because she still had status and was a registered Band member of Esgenoopetitj, she had the right to exercise Aboriginal hunting rights that were known to be held by Esgenoopetitj's members.

At trial in the New Brunswick Provincial Court, Ms. Lamb's Aboriginal rights defence was rejected and Ms. Lamb was convicted. Ms. Lamb then appealed that conviction in the New Brunswick Court of Queen's Bench.

Whereas Ms. Lamb had represented herself at trial, she was represented by a lawyer at the appeal hearing. Ms. Lamb's counsel drew the Court's attention to the long legislative history in which the Government of Canada had recognized that non-Indigenous women who married First Nations men were entitled to status under the Indian Act. Ms. Lamb's counsel argued that the trial judge had committed legal errors in coming to his decision because he had not had the benefit of the full spectrum of information that should have informed that decision, and, for that reason, counsel argued that a new trial should be ordered so that Ms. Lamb's Aboriginal rights defence could be considered again with all of the relevant information being taken into account. 

The Court of Queen's Bench agreed that the lower court had committed legal errors and that a new trial was necessary.

 View the Decision on CanLII: https://www.canlii.org/en/nb/nbqb/doc/2018/2018nbqb213/2018nbqb213.html

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