page_title: R v Marshall
section_title: Decision No. 1
hierarchical_section_title: R v Marshall / Decision No. 1
caption_attribution_description: English: Detail of etching by J. F. W. Desbarres, "Grand Passage in the Bay Fundy on the Western Shore of Nova Scotia" published ca 1770 as part of the Atlantic Neptune. Image shows high-sided Mi'kmaq canoe and other vessels between present-day Brier Island and Long Island, Nova Scotia.
context_page_description: R v Marshall [1999] 3 S.C.R. 456 and R v Marshall [1999] 3 S.C.R. 533 are two decisions given by the Supreme Court of Canada on a single case regarding a treaty right to fish.
context_section_description: The Court held in the first decision that the famous Donald Marshall's catching and selling of eels was valid under 1760 and 1761 treaties between the Mi'kmaq and Britain, and that federal fishery regulations governing a closed fishing season and the regulating and the requirement of licenses to fish and sell the catch would infringe the treaty right.
  In 1999, the court of appeal heard the Marshall case. The court of appeal indicated that the trial judge had made an error in law and, therefore, overturned the decision. (p. 89)  The appeal Judge Justice Binnie stated that the trial judge’s error was in not focusing attention on the Maliseet–British treaty of 1 February 1760.
caption: The case recognized the traditional role of fishing in Mi'kmaq culture. Shown is a seagoing canoe used for fishing and transport. Atlantic Neptune, ca 1770
exif: {}