Supreme Court won't hear native loggers' appeal

The Supreme Court of Canada has refused to hear an appeal concerning the right of a New Brunswick aboriginal to cut timber on Crown land. It was Thomas Peter Paul, a Micmac from the Pabineau First Nation, who first won the right to cut timber on Crown land. That decision was later overturned.

Paul was charged with illegally cutting about $3,000 worth of bird's eye maple on Crown land leased to Stone Consolidated Ltd in 1995.

A provincial court judge acquitted him in August 1996.

The Court of Queen's Bench upheld the acquittal in October 1997. But the New Brunswick Court of Appeal unanimously overturned it in April 1998.

Paul's lawyer Cleveland Allaby launched his appeal to the Supreme Court in June. He claimed treaties signed by the British Crown and native leaders in the 1700s gave his client and other aboriginal peoples the right to take trees from Crown land.

The Supreme Court gave no reason for rebuffing the appeal application.

Native people in the province say the decision is a disappointment but not the end of the fight.