Industrial lands that include Canadian Tire and Coca-Cola Canada distribution centres, which fall within the boundaries of a Cowichan Nation aboriginal title claim, are seen in an aerial view in Richmond, B.C., on Aug. 22, 2025. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck
A B.C. Supreme Court judge has ruled against a bid by a Richmond company to reopen the Cowichan Tribes aboriginal title case, calling the firm’s application an abuse of process.
Justice Barbara Young has denied the request of private landowner Montrose Property Holdings Ltd. to reopen the Cowichan case so it could be added as a defendant.
The decision, released on June 29, said Montrose Properties was seeking to revisit matters that had already been resolved, and the application was dismissed. Montrose Properties is an owner and developer of industrial workspaces located in Richmond, an island city located immediately south of Vancouver in the Metro Vancouver region.
Young determined that the company’s effort to reopen a finalized trial to become an additional defendant amounted to an abuse of process.
“Although Montrose did not have formal notice of the (original) proceeding, it had knowledge of the proceedings, and chose not to apply to be added as party until long after the conclusion of the trial,” Young said in her 34-page ruling.
Young said she agreed with lawyers for the Cowichan Tribes that reopening the trial could potentially lead to an influx of other private landowners and individuals with commercial or other interests in the Cowichan title lands vying to join the proceedings.
Granting the application could motivate other third parties to implement a similar strategy of trying to join other cases after a decision is made, she said. The appropriate avenue for disputing the ruling is through an appeal that is already in motion, she added.
“Allowing a new party to relitigate these issues, before this court, nearly two years after the conclusion of a 513-day trial, improperly interferes with the principal of finality,” Young wrote. “It is in the interests of the public and the parties that the decision at trial is final.”
The Epoch Times was unable to reach Montrose Properties before publication time, but the company has commented on the case previously.
President and CEO Ken Low said in a January press release that its application was supported by the provincial and federal governments as well as the City of Richmond, and the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority.
“We believe the application raises important issues,” Low said at the time, noting that a large portion of the firm’s privately owned lands were impacted by the court’s ruling last summer.
Montrose Properties has 30 days to decide if it will appeal the court’s ruling on its application. The company can also apply to intervene in the B.C. Court of Appeal proceedings, where notices of appeal have been filed by all parties from the original trial.
The company is the largest individual landholder in the region, with a portfolio featuring a Coca-Cola bottling plant and a Canadian Tire warehouse.
Chief of Cowichan Tribes Cindy Daniels said the nation is “very happy” with the court’s ruling.
“This allows us to focus on our respectful reconciliation work, which our ancestors and elders started, based on the court declared Quw’utsun Nation Aboriginal title to lands of our settlement at Tl’uqtinus,” she said in a June 29 statement.
The original 513-day trial concluded in the fall of 2023 and the judge rendered her landmark decision nearly two years later.
The lawsuit leading up to the court’s historic August 2025 decision granting the Cowichan Tribes aboriginal title over parcels of land in Richmond was originally filed by the tribe in 2019.
In her Aug. 7 decision, Young declared that the Cowichan Tribes hold aboriginal title to roughly 750 acres of mostly federal land that also includes 44 privately owned lots, raising questions about the future of fee-simple property ownership.
The claims were opposed by the Musqueam and Tsawwassen First Nations, the federal and provincial governments, the City of Richmond, and the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority.
