Aboriginal Title
Item
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Title
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Aboriginal Title
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Description
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Indigenous Foundations at the University of British Columbia presents information on Aboriginal Title. It defines the term and provides information about a history of the Crown & Aboriginal Title, Aboriginal Title in British Columbia, Aboriginal understandings of title, and what Aboriginal Title means for private property interests.
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Abstract
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Aboriginal title refers to the inherent Aboriginal right to land or a territory. The Canadian legal system recognizes Aboriginal title as a sui generis, or unique collective right to the use of and jurisdiction over a group’s ancestral territories. This right is not granted from an external source but is a result of Aboriginal peoples’ own occupation of and relationship with their home territories as well as their ongoing social structures and political and legal systems. As such, Aboriginal title and rights are separate from rights afforded to non-Aboriginal Canadian citizens under Canadian common law.
Over time, various court decisions have contributed to this definition of title. Along with defining Aboriginal title in more precise terms, these court decisions have further set parameters to how the Crown may justifiably infringe upon Aboriginal title. Some Aboriginal people do not agree with these definitions, as they consider them to limit the scope of Aboriginal title, making it easier to extinguish. The Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) claims that “there remains a significant difference between what Indigenous Peoples see as being our ‘Original Title’ to the land and its resources, and the Canadian legal notion of ‘Aboriginal Title.’”
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Publisher
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Indigenous Foundations
