VICTORIA – The British Columbia government hasn’t yet filed its grounds for appealing against the landmark Cowichan Tribes Aboriginal title case.
But that hasn’t stopped the government from trying to impress on the public that the case could be crucial to the fate of private land ownership in the province, with officials staging a technical briefing for journalists, writing an opinion piece and telling reporters in the legislature why they believe the ruling cannot be allowed to stand.
The information campaign came hours ahead of a Tuesday night meeting organized by the City of Richmond for landowners whose properties could be affected by the ruling.
In August, a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled the tribes have Aboriginal title over about 750 acres on the Fraser River, that Crown and city titles on the land are defective and invalid, and the granting of private titles on it by the government unjustifiably infringed on the Cowichan title.
Hours before the meeting was slated to start, dozens of residents gathered in a parking lot across the street.
Rally organizer Steven Lai, a Richmond resident, said the court ruling left him confused and scared.
Lai owns a home and has about a million-dollar mortgage.
“Could you imagine if I have spent half of my life working hard to pay my mortgage off, not to mention paying for the property taxes, and then only to find out that the property doesn’t belong to me anymore?” said Lai in an interview in Mandarin.
“Then why should I have spent so much time and money paying off the loans? This would be incredibly unfair to me.”
Sharma told reporters at the legislature earlier in the day that the government would continue to fight the case, “probably up to the Supreme Court of Canada,” to give British Columbians clarity about their fee-simple rights, the most common form of land ownership in Canada.
“We are going to continue to fight the court case at every level to understand how we bring that clarity,” she said.
“We have a team of lawyers at work right here and I want to assure British Columbians of that, to help ensure that we can clarify the law and the issues with the law that we see in this court decision.”
She said the provincial government’s argument in the case had been that Aboriginal and fee-simple title “cannot co-exist” simultaneously on the same land in their full form.
Sharma said there was “perhaps nothing more important” to land owners than the security of their title, quoting directly from B.C.‘s arguments in the case, which it lost.
She also co-wrote an opinion piece in “The Vancouver Sun” with Indigenous Relations Minister Spencer Chandra-Herbert, saying they “strongly disagree with the court’s treatment of private property in this case.”
While Tuesday’s article argued that “you can respect Aboriginal title and protect private property,” it also said “the ruling raises new and complicated legal questions that must be clarified by a higher court.”
In the technical briefing, reporters were told of the province’s arguments in the original case.
The briefing quoted directly from B.C.‘s case, saying both Aboriginal title and fee-simple title “confer rights of exclusive use and occupation” of land.
“As a result, those interests cannot co-exist in the same land, in their full form, at the same time,” it said.
The government argued that Aboriginal title “must be understood as being suspended” where lands are “subject to an incompatible legal interest” such as fee-simple ownership.
“This does not mean that Aboriginal title is extinguished, but rather that it is suspended for the time that the incompatible legal interest persists,” it says.
The City of Richmond, meanwhile, had argued for extinguishment, reporters were told in the briefing, with both arguments failing to convince the court.
Richmond, which is joining B.C. and others appealing the decision, scheduled Tuesday’s meeting for owners to discuss the implications of the ruling, saying in a letter that the ruling “may compromise the status and validity” of their ownership.
David Rosenberg, the lawyer for the Cowichan Tribes, has warned against applying the case to all fee-simple lands across British Columbia or Canada, but the technical briefing described B.C.‘s argument as focused on protecting the integrity of private property across the province.
The Quw’utsun Nation said Monday that public comments about the case by Premier David Eby, Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie and other politicians have been “at best, misleading, and at worst, deliberately inflammatory,” saying the ruling does not “erase” public property.
The nation, whose members include the Cowichan Tribes, said the B.C. government and City of Richmond were stirring up “unnecessary fears” among private landowners.
Lai said no matter how the appeals turn out, “the damage was already done.”
“I won’t buy a home in that area anymore,” he said. “I think this ruling is just the beginning and I am worried it will set a precedent for other related lawsuits in the future.”
In her August ruling, Justice Barbara Young ruled that “Aboriginal title lies beyond the land title system” in B.C.
The court found that the terms under which B.C. joined Canada in 1871 had limited the province’s “ability to sell the land without first dealing with the Cowichan’s interest.”
– With files from Nono Shen in Richmond
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 28, 2025.
