Windspeaker.com – The Nuchatlaht Nation began its legal battle in 2017 fighting BC and the federal government to get their land back. Their territory includes a large part of Nootka Island off the west coast of Vancouver Island. It has been impacted by industrial logging and fishing for almost a century since Nuchatlaht was displaced by the BC government. BC has awarded licenses to corporations to work the land. Western Forest Products, one of those licensees, is also a defendant in the case.

The remedy being sought, said Woodward, is that Aboriginal title exists and BC’s Forest Act ceases to apply.

“The forest companies are going to have to deal with Nuchatlaht, not with the provincial government and Nuchatlaht may decide they’re not going to keep cutting down those trees,” he said.

Woodward said he had just received the province’s statement of defence on the case, which outlined three arguments, that :

• Nuchatlaht did not presently occupy the land; 
• BC laws displaced or extinguished Aboriginal title; and
• Nuchatlaht was “too small and weak” to have Aboriginal title.

Woodward chided the province for its “disgraceful argument” and called on the attorney general David Eby to “turn it around.” Woodward also called on the province to implement the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), which came into law in November 2019. BC was the first province to pass legislation that established the United Nations Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) as its framework for reconciliation.

The Nuchatlaht case will be the first land title to be tested against DRIPA and could be precedent setting.

Woodward said there are a number of other potential cases – Haida, Coquitlam, Cowichan Tribes – that could be impacted by this decision. The Nuchatlaht case is also a direct application of the precedent-setting 2014 Tsilhqot’in decision. The Supreme Court of Canada stated that a semi-nomadic tribe can claim title to a tract of land even if used sporadically.