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A new Brunswick ruling that Aboriginal title cannot be declared over private land has been allowed to stand by the Supreme Court of Canada, giving British Columbia an avenue to win its appeal in the landmark Cowichan Tribes case, BC’s attorney general has said.
The Canadian Press reports Niki Sharma as saying the High Court’s refusal to hear an appeal by the Wolastoqey First Nation in the case involving Aboriginal title in New Brunswick gives BC a “clear path” for an appeal in the Cowichan case, which has cast doubt on the primacy of private property rights.
The mayor of Richmond BC, meanwhile, said private property owners in the Cowichan Tribes title area should “breathe a little easier” in light of the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling.
In the New Brunswick decision that has been allowed to stand, an Appeal Court judge said in December that a declaration of Aboriginal title over privately owned lands “would sound the death of reconciliation with the interests of non-Aboriginal Canadians.
In addition to British Columbia and Richmond, Canada’s federal government is also a party to the Cowichan case.
The Crown-Indigenous Relations Department said the Wolastoqey decision allowed by the Supreme Court of Canada to stand on Thursday was an important ruling, adding that “private property rights are fundamental.”
In the Cowichan ruling last August, the BC Supreme Court ruled that the Cowichan Tribes have Aboriginal title over a portion of land in Richmond along the Fraser River, that Aboriginal title is a “senior interest” compared with fee-simple title, and that sections of BC’s Land Title Act that establish fee-simple title as “indefeasible” do not apply to Aboriginal title.
