Alberta Court of Appeal Confirms that Systemic Challenge to Provincial Consultation Regime May Proceed to Trial – JFK Law LLP
September 15th, 2025
In 2020, Mikisew Cree First Nation and Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation – two Treaty 8 First Nations with territory in the Athabasca oil sands region – launched a constitutional challenge against Alberta’s regime for Crown-Indigenous consultation. The lawsuit identifies two key defects in the provincial consultation regime:
- first, it fails to uphold the Crown’s duty to consult with First Nations, including by limiting consultation to “site-specific” issues and excluding broader issues such as cumulative effects; and
- second, by setting up barriers to judicial review, it prevents the courts from meaningfully overseeing Crown consultation and ensuring constitutional compliance.
