August 2025
A landmark ruling in a British Columbia court by Justice Barbara Young on 7 August, upheld the indigenous right to reclaim ancestral lands by granting title and fishing rights to the Cowichan Nation in regions of the Lower Mainland based on their historic territory. This ruling was predicated on UNDRIP issuing a non-binding resolution in 2007, which outlines rights to self-determination, land ownership, and consent laws for indigenous peoples.
Now, there is concern about how this ruling will affect the rights of current property owners in B.C. and the rest of Canada. There is also the issue of which Indigenous Nations rightfully should be able to lay claim to any disputed Indigenous land, as Indigenous tribes of centuries past frequently battled and captured land from each other.
However, the issue I wish to address here comes from something Justice Young said in her ruling. In one section, Young’s ruling cites an argument against the Cowichan Nation’s title claim, which makes note of my second point above, that the Cowichan Nation itself acquired the land via “violence and conquest.” Young further claims that in this case, contemporary laws shouldn’t be applied retroactively.
Justice Young further states “It would not be in the spirit of reconciliation to hold an Indigenous Nation’s conduct centuries ago to retroactive standards of international or Canadian law. It would be a curious twist of logic to find on the basis of UNDRIP that an Indigenous Nation should be denied a declaration of title because of law that did not exist at that time.”
OK, so we shouldn’t judge the actions of those from the past using today’s standards? Then why are progressives judging the actions of people like Henry Dundas, Egerton Ryerson, Sir John A. Macdonald, and many others, whose views were in accordance with others of their time, using the laws and morals of today?
