In this case, the defendants are two first nations’ hunters who killed a deer outside of the hunting season on a land that used to belong to their tribe but which belongs now to the Crown.

The Crown sued the defendant for violating the provincial Wildlife Act which forbids hunting deer outside the hunting season. The defendants appealed the decision citing their aboriginal rights provided by the 1763 Royal Proclamation. But the British Columbia Court of Appeal, in front of which the appeal was brought, dismissed it on the basis the section 88 of the Indian Act provides that all general laws are applicable to first nation’s people when it does not violate the Indian Act. The Court considered that the Wildlife Act was not violating the Indian Act and that therefore, the two hunters could be charged.

The defendants appealed the decision in front of the Supreme Court. The Judges of the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the lower courts as they considered that no evidence where made to show that the Wildlife Act was not in line with the Indian Act.