The B.C. government is beginning its court-ordered negotiations to resolve issues of conflicting title claims on private land encompassed by the Cowichan Tribes land rights case.
There are still several appeals being made in the case, but the government is choosing to begin this work anyway.
“The court has required us to enter into negotiations with the Cowichan as part of the judgment,” Premier David Eby said on Monday (March 2). “We are doing that in good faith.”
Vancouver Island’s Cowichan Tribes First Nation brought the land title lawsuit in 2014, claiming Aboriginal rights and title to an area of land in Richmond that the nation once used as a fishing village.
The B.C. Supreme Court issued a judgment on Aug. 7 in the case conferring Aboriginal title and rights to both public and private parcels of land. Title and rights were declared on the public portions, while the province is ordered to reconcile “in good faith” the private land, in which the judge found both Aboriginal and fee-simple title exist.
Fears have grown that this will impact private property rights, and one major affected landowner is trying to have the case reopened.
The Cowichan Tribes, meanwhile, have sought to offer assurance that they have no intention to take people’s private property away.
A joint statement from the First Nation and the B.C. government, released on Monday, also seeks to allay these concerns.
“For transparency, neither the Cowichan Nation nor British Columbia are seeking to invalidate any privately held fee simple titles on the Cowichan Title Lands through the negotiation or appeal processes,” the statement says.
But these negotiations do not mean the province is no longer seeking to challenge the decision in court. Eby said the two sides are still “adversarial” and “head-to-head” as the appeals process gets underway.
“But at the end of the day, the provincial government’s not going anywhere. The Cowichan First Nation isn’t going anywhere,” he said. “We’re going to have a relationship after this case. We have to talk.”
He said he hopes the joint statement offers reassurance for businesses and homeowners.
Interim B.C. Conservative Leader Trevor Halford said he wants more information from Eby on this, calling it one of the “biggest challenges we’ve ever faced” that is “paralyzing hundreds of homeowners.”
Halford was critical that Eby did not make an announcement specifically about this, but instead issued a news release and took some questions at an unrelated news conference about daylight saving time changes.
“They start negotiations, we don’t hear anything,” Halford said. “All we hear is that, well, the premier’s going to talk about daylight savings time today. Guys, leadership matters.”
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