Canada has legal duty to provide safe water, housing to remote First Nations, federal judge rules

The Supreme Court of Canada this week will hear two cases that involve overlapping Aboriginal title, as courts across the country grapple with increasingly complex questions related to Indigenous land rights. Both cases at the top court involve the Gitanyow First Nation, which is seeking to prove that it has Aboriginal rights and title to about 6,200 square kilometres of land in northwestern British Columbia.The Gitanyow claim overlaps Nisga’a Nation land, which is covered by a modern treaty that provided governance and ownership rights over around 2,000 square kilometres. The Gitanyow...