This 800-page court decision -- the longest trial in Canadian history -- focused on a competing land claim around Richmond’s south arm of the Fraser River. The Aboriginal title land in question includes around $100 billion in infrastructure, impacting the City of Richmond, Crown-owned land and private property, plus ports and warehouses for Amazon, Wayfair, Canadian Tire, UPS, the Vancouver Airport Fuel Authority, and more.  The Musqueam and Tsawwassen First Nations, the federal and provincial governments, the City of Richmond, and the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority opposed the Cowichan claim during this 513-day trial that began in 2019.
 

The Cowichan Tribes were awarded constitutionally protected rights to those lands and waterways, with the court placing Indigenous ownership above British Columbia’s private land title agreements. Of note, private property rights have no such protection in the 1982 Constitution and were declared by this BC Judge as "defective and invalid". Some pundits argue we have enabled this conclusion following the Province of BC's enshrining into law the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (DRIPA), unanimously approved by all BC's provincial parties in 2019.