Last February, a BC Supreme Court Justice granted an injunction forcing the Okanagan Indian Band to continue providing fire and emergency services to roughly 700 Parker Cove residents after the band threatened to cut off those services with just 60 days’ notice over an unresolved dispute about fire protection fees.
The interim ruling, Parker Cove Properties Limited Partnership v. Okanagan Indian Band, 2026 BCSC 601 illustrates a broader problem in Canadian Aboriginal law: bands may simultaneously occupy multiple legal identities, deploying whichever one serves their arguments best.
The band attempted to claim it was a private contractual party when accountability was at stake, but also a public authority when powers of governance were at stake. The Justice put it bluntly: “they cannot have it both ways”.
Under the Indian Act, bands are not autonomous governments. The Crown holds reserve lands on their behalf and exercises discretionary control over their affairs. From that relationship flows the fiduciary duty established by the Supreme Court of Canada, a duty rooted in the fact that the Crown assumed control over land and resources belonging to Indigenous peoples and must act in their best interest. The band, in that framework, is a ward, and the Crown is a trustee with enforceable obligations.
But since Haida in 2004, bands have also been recognized as constitutional rightsholders whose title and governance authority the Crown must accommodate before making decisions that affect their territories. Under this identity, bands are not wards at all. Rather, they resemble distinct governments whose consent carries legal weight against the authority of the Crown.
And then there is the third hat, which the OKIB tried to wear in the Parker Cove proceedings: the band as a private entity engaged in independent commercial dealings. Under this identity, the band would be accountable only to the terms of a contract and not to the standards that apply to governments providing essential services, nor subject to the discretionary control of the Crown as a ward.
Read the full article at Sitka Media: Public authority or private contractor? Navigating conflicting band identities.