Snaw-naw-as First Nation on Vancouver Island has filed a civil lawsuit

Snaw-naw-as First Nation on Vancouver Island has filed a civil lawsuit in B.C. Supreme Court against the Island Corridor Foundation and the Attorney General of Canada over a railway line. Snaw-Naw-As wants the land that was removed from them to build the E&N Railway returned. The line runs through the reserve, north of Nanaimo.

“The corridor, that was taken out of the reserve for the railway, was expropriated back in the early part of the 20th century and one of the conditions that goes with any expropriation like that for railways is that once it’s no longer needed or used for railway purposes, it goes back to the original owner,” said Robert Janes, Snaw-Naw-As legal counsel.

Island Corridor, a non-profit organization formed in 2003 to manage the railway, is awaiting $7.5 million in federal government funding to restore passenger train service to Vancouver Island, reads the Nanaimo News Bulletin. Unsafe track conditions caused passenger service to be discontinued in 2011.

“If the E&N can actually prove that they are planning to genuinely run a railway, and have the ability to run a railway, and have the money to run a railway, then that obviously would impact the basic underlying part of our claim,” said Janes.