City of Richmond to host meeting on ‘consequential’ Cowichan Tribes case

RICHMOND — A British Columbia mayor hopes an upcoming meeting will give property owners affected by the Cowichan Tribes case more information, calling the decision “one of the most consequential rulings of any court” in Canadian history.

The meeting scheduled for Oct. 28 in Richmond happens almost three months after a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled that Cowichan Tribes have the right to 7 1/2 square kilometres of land in Richmond, ruling that land titles granted by government were invalid.

“There are many dozens, may be hundreds of people and their property and their investments that are being impacted by the Cowichan Tribes decision, who had absolutely no knowledge of it before the decision came down,” Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie said.

While the First Nation had not sought to have the titles of privately held properties declared invalid, the court said the Crown’s granting of private property ownership rights unjustifiably infringe on Cowichan Aboriginal title and needs to be resolved through negotiation, litigation or purchase. Otherwise the properties would remain under Cowichan title lands.

The City of Richmond, the province and the Musquem First Nations have announced appeals of the decision, and Brodie said the meeting will give affected property owners a chance to learn more about the case and ask questions.

“I think it can totally undermine the land title program that we have in … British Columbia, completely undermine it and take it apart, and that can go for much of the entire country,” Brodie said of the court decision. “So I think that this decision has to be aggressively and assertively appealed, and it cannot be allowed to stand.”

Brodie said the municipality hand-delivered somewhere between 125 and 150 individual notices to affected owners, including a briefing note which says Richmond will “make legal arguments that Aboriginal title and fee simple title cannot co-exist over the same lands.”

He said the meeting is for information-only, but suggested affected parties could speak to their MLAs, any ministers they know and MPs, and insist that both the federal and provincial government mount an assertive defence.

Conservative Party of B.C. Leader John Rustad said last month that “Indigenous rights and private property cannot coexist,” and called on the Supreme Court of Canada to resolve the conflict as soon as possible.

Brodie, however, disagreed with Rustad’s call to send it to the Supreme Court now, because he said it would not resolve all of the outstanding issues. He said he is confident the decision will be overturned, but cautioned it could take one to two years, and then a further appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada could take another two to four years.

He added that he could not give advice to property owners about what they should be doing or what they can do.

In a letter that he sent to Premier David Eby on Sunday, Rustad called for sending the case through the reference procedure to Canada’s highest court.

“The question is straightforward,” Rustad wrote. “Can Aboriginal title and private property coexist over the same land, and if so, what are the legal consequences for each?”

Until the Supreme Court has answers that question, government must “immediately pause all negotiations” with First Nations, Rustad wrote.

Speaking to reporters at the Union of BC Municipalities convention in Victoria last month, Eby said the Cowichan Tribes ruling has created great uncertainty about how Indigenous title relates to private property.

He said that uncertainty needs to be clarified urgently, but questioned calls for sending the issue to the Supreme Court, because it could lead to a “non-binding decision in the abstract, in a vacuum.”

Eby said it’s important the appeal court is able to make a decision based on evidence, and on the implications for the entire region, including First Nations.

He added that the province is working with all parties to get the case to court as quickly as possible.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 19, 2025.

–By Wolfgang Depner in Victoria