Indigenous Sovereignty Movements (Canada)

British Columbia is Indigenous territory. It is Indigenous territory because Indigenous peoples have never ceded their land or rights via treaties and because treaty land is about sharing rather than ceding as conceptualized in a Western legal framework. According to the 1763 Royal Proclamation, treaty‐making with Indigenous nations is the only way the Crown (or government) can acquire territory in Canada. Despite this legal rule, the government in British Columbia has sold Indigenous land, and rights to the resources contained on this land, to third‐party interests, with the justification that this land is “Crown” land. The ongoing situation in British Columbia provides one example of the grievances of Indigenous peoples in Canada.