Maybe it’s late and I’m tired, but damn this article is hard to make sense of. Is it me or is this article poorly written? If ever an article needed a little background info in it this one sure does.
[quote]Court rejects authorization of native terminal
The Vancouver Sun
Monday, September 25, 2006
The Federal Court of Canada has dismissed a notice of application filed by the Lax Kw’alaams and Metlakatla first nations bands against the federal transport minister over the development of the Prince Rupert container facility, ruling that the minister is not required to authorize the project.
The two bands had requested a judicial review of the minister’s pending decision to approve the terminal development, alleging they had not been properly consulted and accommodated for the project.
But in a judgment dated Sept 21, Justice Konrad von Finckenstein said no pending decision existed, as the minister is not required to give authorization.
“In my view this failure by the applicants’ to properly plead their case is fatal and accordingly, I have no choice but to dismiss this application,” von Finckenstein wrote.[/quote]
I think the judge is saying that the bands are going after the wrong guy. It’s not the transport minister himself who had the authority to allow the project to go ahead, thus, the application was dismissed.
The question now is, who can they go after? The province and the feds (and Maher) are sharing costs but, since bands are under federal jurisdiction, you would think it was the feds - Harper himself, maybe?
they should not go after anybody, just let the damn port be built and allow the northern part of the province to finally succeed, kudos to that judge. speaking of which…how is the port comming along?
Nah your first inclination was right, it was a poorly crafted article, even the headline made little sense. I noticed that later in the day the Sun posted a new article with I assume much of the same info, but that one was protected behind its subscriber wall…
At leat the headline of that one makes sense and gives you an idea as to what the story is about (if only we could read the rest of the story, somewhere out there in htmf land is a kind soul with the access I’m sure)
I guess the first draft was from the overnight reporter, who not only didn’t tell a very good story, but let it slip by the gatekeepers of the subscription service.
You do have to work rather hard at that article to understand it, but eventually you kind of get the drift, bottom line I guess is that the Tsimshian can’t use that particular approach in their court battles.