This was never on my bingo card - losing title to my property.

Maybe low likelihood, but it’s a real risk now…

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The pieces of Canada that could be declared Aboriginal land

TRISTIN HOPPER

Ottawa Citizen

Nov 25, 2025

British Columbia is embroiled in the fallout from a seismic court decision that extended Aboriginal title to a swath of Richmond, B.C., including more than 100 private homes.

Known as the Cowichan Tribes decision, it is the first in Canada to effectively hand large blocks of privately owned land over to Indigenous control.

While the Cowichan Tribes First Nation has said it has no intention of evicting landowners within the claimed area, it doesn't mean that they couldn't. The decision explicitly extinguishes the legal supremacy of private property, and states that the Cowichan's claim to Aboriginal title over the area takes priority.

B.C. Premier David Eby, for one, has warned that the precedent set in the British Columbia Supreme Court decision could just as easily apply to other cities across Canada.

While much of the country is built atop land that was ceded to the Crown in treaties, millions of hectares still fit the definition of “unceded.” That is, the Indigenous groups occupying the land prior to European settlement never formally surrendered control to the Crown.

This describes much of B.C. and Quebec, the entirety of Prince Edward Island and much of Newfoundland and Labrador. In addition, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are both governed by 18th century “peace and friendship” treaties that, unlike later treaties, didn't specifically extinguish Aboriginal title.

As Eby told reporters earlier this month, “there are many examples across the province, and across the country, where Indigenous people were displaced from land illegally, wrongly, unjustly, where there are now fee simple property owners that operate businesses or live in homes.”

Here is a guide to some of the other Canadian land claim disputes that are receiving renewed attention now that it's conceivable they could result in private land becoming Indigenous.

ANOTHER PIECE OF METRO VANCOUVER

Last week, Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West issued a statement saying he would “vigorously defend” private property rights against an Aboriginal title claim by the Kwikwetlem First Nation.

The claim is nearly a decade old, and it covers several square kilometres of both Coquitlam and Port Coquitlam, two communities on the eastern edge of Metro Vancouver.

If successful, the Kwikwetlem would gain control of the 700-acre Tlahutum Regional Park, the Colony Farm Forensic Psychiatric Hospital and Gates Park, one of Port Coquitlam's main public parks.

However, despite West's specific mention of private property rights, Port Coquitlam did confirm that the claim only covers lands owned by governments, whether Metro Vancouver, the province of B.C. or the city of Port Coquitlam itself. “There are no civil claims initiated by any First Nations involving private property,” read a statement.

That wasn't always the case. In an earlier version of the claim, the Kwikwetlem did seek Aboriginal title over portions of the Port Coquitlam urban core, only to dial it back in 2020 as part of an agreement to have Port Coquitlam provide utility hookups to a business park built on Kwikwetlem reserve land.

KAMLOOPS, B.C.

This claim is also not new. It was filed in 2015 by a two-nation coalition including Tkemlúps te Secwépemc (formerly the Kamloops Indian Band). This is the First Nation probably best known for the 2021 claim that a ground penetrating radar survey outside the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School was proof of 215 children's graves.

The land claim covers 12,543 square kilometres around Kamloops, and was filed to stop a proposed gold and copper mine that has since fizzled out.

Nevertheless, the claim is still active, and has started to generate concern in Kamloops given that it specifically seeks Aboriginal title over private property.

Kamloops-centre MLA Peter Milobar recently told local media “I have a lot of constituents that are already reaching out to my office ... and they legitimately want to know what's going on.”

Just as in the Cowichan Tribes case, the First Nations pursuing the Kamloops claim have said they have no intention of seizing homes from private landowners.

Ron Ignace was chief of the Skeetchestn Indian Band when it filed the claim along with Tkemlúps te Secwépemc. Earlier this month, he told the Nelson Star that “at worst, what we would make them do is pay us their taxes, and they can carry on their business as usual.”

MUCH OF GATINEAU,

QUE.

This claim received a fair bit of notice for being filed within weeks of the Cowichan decision. On Oct. 24, the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation filed a claim to eight areas surrounding Gatineau, the Quebec city directly across the river from Ottawa.

One of the First Nations' lawyers, Jullian Riddel, told The Canadian Press that they are indeed aiming for a result in league with the Cowichan decision. Specifically, just like Cowichan Tribes, they're seeking court recognition of Aboriginal title.

Said Riddel, “there have been several of these cases in the province of British Columbia, but to date that has not occurred in either Ontario or Quebec.”

Also like the Cowichan decision, the case isn't just based on a claim of traditional territory. Rather, the Kitigan Zibi are claiming the breach of a contract with the Crown.

In the case of the Cowichan decision, the assertion was that the claimed area of Richmond had been specifically set aside for Cowichan usage, only for B.C.'S first Commissioner of Lands to go rogue and sell it anyway.

In the Kitigan Zibi claim, the assertion is that Gatineau was only ever settled because authorities violated the terms of a 1760 treaty setting the area aside for Indigenous use.

HALF OF NEW BRUNSWICK

In 2021, six New Brunswick First Nations collectively forming the Wolastoqey Nation filed a claim seeking Aboriginal title over more than 50 per cent of New Brunswick.

Naturally, such a massive claim encompassed hundreds of private and industrial landowners.

Late last year, a decision by New Brunswick's Court of King's Bench seemed to dismiss the Wolastoqey's claims against private landowners in the claim area. The court declared that those owners were “innocents” in the matter and didn't owe any compensation to the Wolastoqey just because they bought their house on disputed land.

Nevertheless, the decision also ruled that the Wolastoqey's claim to Aboriginal title could go ahead.

So, it's still on the table that any number of New Brunswickers could ultimately find themselves in the same position as landowners in Richmond: A court declares their land to be Aboriginal title, and they're thrown into a limbo state where they can't sell or secure financing.

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