**UPDATE on the Aboriginal Claims in Canada** There opposing legal opinions about this case, which are not so doom & gloom as the substack that @Jeff Booth shared.

JFK Law

Cowichan Tribes and Private Property: Separating Fact from Fiction - JFK Law - Canada

Since the BC Supreme Court released Cowichan Tribes v. Canada (Attorney General), 2025 BCSC 1490, in August 2025 declaring that the Quw'utsun ...

JFK Law argues that the tribe is not seeking to displace established private land owners, but rather seeking to redress British Columbia’s violation of their Federal Treaty obligations, which grants Aboriginal title over certain land, over which the provinces have no jurisdiction. "Aboriginal title" does not mean that no other legal ownership exists. It does mean that the legal structure in the chain of titles is different, but does not invalidate private land titles, aka "fee simple ownership". > Aboriginal title and fee simple ownership are two distinct forms of property rights. Historically, in British Columbia, the Crown did not recognize Aboriginal title; rather, it assumed that it held title to the land and proceeded to grant those rights to settlers. This led to the exclusion of Indigenous peoples from their own territories throughout the Province. Cases such as the court case brought by the Quw’utsun Nation are about addressing these historical wrongs by the Crown and determining how these overlapping rights should be reconciled today. > … > In this case, the Quw’utsun Nation never asked the Court to invalidate the titles held by individual homeowners or private businesses and never tried to get those lands back. The Nation’s case is not about taking land from individual private property owners in the claim area. > > The Nation has emphasized that they intentionally did not bring this case against individual private landowners or private businesses. In doing so, the Nation has in fact taken a respectful and responsible approach, aimed at reconciling their interests and those of the individual titleholders. Their case focused on holding the Crown accountable for its actions, not on challenging individual British Columbians. > > Contrary to what’s being said by much of the media, the Court’s ruling does not “erase” private property. It does not mean that private property owners in the area over which the Court declared Aboriginal title no longer own their lands. Private fee simple interests continue to exist on these Aboriginal title lands. So basically tribes in B.C. (at least) are suing the provincial government for having ignored Federal treaty rights for decades, and the remediation for that injustice has yet to be determined. The process could take another decade or two. In the end, it could mean that land titles are between private buyers and the Aboriginal Nation that holds the treaty rights over those lands, instead of with the Crown, or perhaps some combination of both. View quoted note →