R v Paul, 2014 NBPC 44

This case was heard in the New Brunswick Provincial Court. 

The Defendant, Darren Paul, was charged under the New Brunswick Crown Lands and Forests Act with the felling, removal, and possession of timber from government land. Mr. Paul was a Maliseet individual and a member of Woodstock First Nation. His main defence was that he had a treaty right to harvest the timber which recognized under the 1725-1726 Treaty signed between the Maliseet and British colonial authorities.

The government’s position was that the treaty relied upon had been extinguished, and it wished to support that position by introducing a report from an expert witness.

Counsel for Mr. Paul challenged the admissibility of that report and argued that the expert witness made a number of statements of opinion that were outside the scope of his expertise (specifically, by interpreting the decisions of other courts that had considered the validity of the treaty in question). The Court concluded the expert witness' report could not be admitted as it was currently written, because the report did contain statements of opinion that were outside the scope of the expert's expertise.

View the Decision on CanLII: https://www.canlii.org/en/nb/nbpc/doc/2014/2014nbpc44/2014nbpc44.html

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