The British Columbia Supreme Court recently released
Cowichan Tribes v Canada (Attorney General), 2025 BCSC
1490, a landmark Aboriginal title and rights judgment.
In this post, we address the decision's approach to proof of
Aboriginal title.
This is one of a series of blogs about the Cowichan
Tribes decision. A complete list of blogs in this series is
linked at the end of this post.
The Case at a Glance
The plaintiffs, successors of the historic Cowichan Nation,
sought declarations of Aboriginal title over approximately 1,846
acres of land, including a traditional summer village on the Fraser
River's south arm, now part of Richmond, British Columbia. They
also sought a declaration for an Aboriginal right to fish for food
on the south arm of the Fraser River.1 The case, which
began in 2014, was a lengthy and complex legal battle with six
defendants: Canada, British Columbia, the City of Richmond, the
Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, Tsawwassen First Nation,
