Not that I’m an Indigenous rights expert, but this is a little bit more complicated than the subtitle lets on.

Mainly, the Cowichan people gaining sole land title rights leaves out Musqueam, Tsawwassen and other First Nation peoples’ historical use of it (Richmond sits between the two nations’ traditional claim), since they are not party to the lawsuit making the same claim as Cowichan that they could share.

If I were to make a present-day analogy it would be that Lulu Island was a common summer cottage like area where various local First Nations gathered and spent the season fishing and hunting but was identified as the Cowichan summer hangout, while their home territorial claims are on Vancouver Island. I would imagine that Semiahmoo, Squamish, Coquitlam, Lyackson people and other bands on the island, Salish people all along the lower mainland and Washington state probably visited there occasionally too.

So it is true that through Canadian colonialism, that right to spend time there was taken away from everyone and given to settlers, but the Cowichan aren’t the only ones it was taken from so I think it’s reasonable for the BC government to argue it shouldn’t be the only one that should be given rights back to. That’s not an easy thing for courts to rule on within our existing judicial framework and laws.

At least if the appeal is happening, it should be on these grounds rather than the “there should be no remaining Aboriginal title right” that was argued here.