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

Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie 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 the British Columbia community 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.

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 says the meeting will give affected property owners a chance to learn more about the case and ask questions.

Brodie says 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.”

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 says the decision needs to be appealed and overturned, but disagrees with Rustad’s call to send it to the Supreme Court now, because that would not resolve all of the outstanding issues.

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

–By Wolfgang Depner in Victoria