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Two days of meetings in British Columbia between provincial officials and First Nations leadership are underway amid tensions over a landmark Aboriginal-title court ruling.
The province says the 10th B.C. Cabinet and First Nations Leaders’ Gathering will involve more than 1,300 meetings aimed at advancing government-to-government relationships.
Those relationships have been strained after a B.C. Supreme Court judge ruled in August that the Cowichan 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 Cowichan title.
Premier David Eby says getting clarification from the Court of Appeal is important when it comes to more than just the affected landowners, saying the land in Richmond is not the only place “where Indigenous people were forcibly displaced in this province’s history.”
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The province, Richmond and other defendants are appealing the decision, amid concerns about the implications for private land ownership both in the Cowichan area and beyond.
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But Chief Shana Thomas, a political executive with the First Nations Summit who is also a member of the Cowichan Nation, told the news conference the issue around private land has led to “fearmongering.”
Thomas says her understanding is that it’s the province’s and federal government’s job to “sit with the Cowichan Nation and reconcile our Aboriginal title with the assertion of the Crown.”
“It’s not the individual property owner. It is the Crown’s duty,” she said on Tuesday.
“And so we’ve started that conversation with British Columbia. We look forward to having that conversation with Canada, and we look forward to reconciling our Aboriginal title with the assertion of the Crown.”
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The Cowichan did not seek to have private titles on the land declared invalid and last week said public comments about the case by Eby, Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie and other politicians have been “at best, misleading, and at worst, deliberately inflammatory,” adding that the ruling does not “erase” public property.
The province says more than 1,300 people have registered for the gathering, which will be attended by representatives of more than 200 First Nations and every provincial ministry.
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