Vaughn Palmer: Welcome to the new B.C.

VICTORIA — Three decades ago Nisga’a Chief James Gosnell declared in the midst of the national constitutional debate that aboriginal people owned British Columbia “lock, stock and barrel.”

Back then he generated headlines and more than a little outrage and disbelief. Today, thanks to a judgment for the ages from the highest court in the land, we should admit that he was well on the way to being right.

For as Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin observed Thursday in recognizing title for the Tsilhqot’in people over a sizable chunk of the province, “from their perspective, the land has always been theirs.”

So it was, so it is and so it is destined to remain for all time.

“This gives them the right to determine, subject to the inherent limits of group title held for future generations, the uses to which the land is put and to enjoy its economic fruits,” wrote McLachlin in a decision joined unanimously by seven other judges.

Hers was an up-to-the-moment version of title, not one that would confine native people to the traditional uses of fishing rocks and salt licks: “Like other landowners, Aboriginal titleholders of modern times can use their land in modern ways, if that is their choice.”