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“There’s no protection for that knowledge. Anybody can come and use that knowledge for themselves.”

The question has deep roots in Indigenous communities, said Niigaan Sinclair of the University of Manitoba’s Native Studies Department.

“This is absolutely huge,” he said. “Indigenous peoples are treated like mines. We’re like things to be extracted and stolen from and then turned back to those communities and charged triple the price.”

Canada is just at the start of a long and complex discussion, said University of Ottawa law professor Jeremy de Beer. Copyright law may not even be the right way to address it.

“Copyright and patent law lack the legal tools to allow for truly collective ownership of content or ideas. It’s a poor fit.”

The Constitution guarantees Indigenous people the right to a cultural heritage, de Beer said, but it may be up to the courts to decide what that means.

“I won’t be surprised to see this issue arising in litigation in the context of (the Constitution).”

There are few precedents aside from the well-known Igloo trademark on Inuit art that was transferred to an Inuit organization in 2017.

Part of any talks will be about protecting Indigenous intellectual property. Another part will be on setting terms for its use by non-Aboriginals.

“There’s ability for outside parties to gain some of that knowledge,” said Wuttke. “It is possible, but there’s a process involved instead of someone just taking the knowledge and registering it, and they become the owner of it.”