READ MORE: B.C.The case, which will resume for final arguments in front of Judge Elliott Myers in late September, is among the first to apply the precedent-setting 2014 Tsilhqot’in decision, which granted the Tsilhqot’in Nation title to 1,750 square kilometres of territory. READ MORE: Lawyer for First Nation says goal of B.C. It was also the first case since the landmark 2014 Tsilhqot’in Aboriginal title decision by the Supreme Court of Canada, which recognized the Tsilhqot’in Nation’s rights and title over a swath of its traditional territory in B.C.’s central Interior, not only to historic village sites. passed legislation in 2019 to align its laws with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The land claim was the first to be heard since B.C. “That would be for a higher court to determine,” the decision said. He wrote that this case may be indicative of the need for a “reconsideration of the test for Aboriginal title as it relates to coastal First Nations.” Myers said in his decision that the case demonstrates “the peculiar difficulties of a coastal Aboriginal group meeting the current test for Aboriginal title, given the marine orientation of the culture.”įor example, he said it is difficult to prove the nation had used the land because they primarily travelled by canoe so there were no established trails between coastal locations. government denied the Nuchatlaht hold Aboriginal title over the 230-square-kilometre area, and said it has met its obligations under agreements with the nation related to forest resources. and federal governments denied Nuchatlaht rights by authorizing logging and “effectively dispossessing” the nation of territory. In the lawsuit filed in 2017, the nation argued that the B.C. “Nuchatlaht are considering their options at this time,” Owen Stewart, a lawyer for the First Nation, said in an email. However, the province denies the Nuchatlaht occupied all of the territory it was claiming. The court heard the Nuchatlaht moved to a village on Nootka Island in the 1780s and they say they occupied the area in 1846, when the Crown resolved boundary disputes with the United States and claimed sovereignty over what is now British Columbia. He’s given the nation 14 days to decide if it wishes to proceed on the further claims. “I am merely leaving it open to the plaintiff to come back before me to canvass these issues should it wish to do so.” “I stress that I am not prejudging any of the issues or whether a pleading amendment would be necessary,” he said in the decision. Justice Elliott Myers said in his decision issued Thursday that there “may be areas” the nation can establish in its claim, but if it wants to do that another hearing would be required. The Nuchatlaht First Nation, a community on Vancouver Island’s northwest coast, wanted title over an area of Crown land that included a portion of Nootka Island and much of the surrounding coastline. A British Columbia Supreme Court judge ruling on a First Nations land title lawsuit says it did not prove it had rights to its entire claim area, although he suggested it may be time for the provincial government to rethink its current test for such titles.
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