Delgamuukw V. British Columbia - Aftermath

Aftermath

The Delgamuukw court case has important implications for the history of Canada and for the idea of history itself. In this case the court gave greater weight to oral history than to written evidence. Of oral histories the court said "they are tangential to the ultimate purpose of the fact-finding process at trial -- the determination of the historical truth."

In A Fair Country, John Ralston Saul writes about the broader significance of the court's recognition of oral evidence as carrying as much or greater weight as written evidence, on Canadian society.

The only legal difficulty with Saul's perception is that oral history is not relevant to the definition of the Indian Tribes' constitutional interest, that being determined by the paramountcy clause section 109 of the Constitution Act, 1867, as settled by the precedents St Catherine's Milling and Lumber Co. v. The Queen, and Attorney General of Canada v. Attorney General of Ontario: In re Indian Claims, Those cases held the Indian constitutional "Interest" is paramount over the Crown's constitutional "Interest" until surrendered by treaty, that being the legal consequence of the treaty process in Canada.