The sign says Saugeen Beach but a Supreme Court of Canada challenge looms in land dispute

Amanda Margison · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 04, 2025 3:46 PM EDT | Last Updated: July 4

The time lawyers submitted paperwork to the Supreme Court of Canada, different radical softly acceptable up ladders in the dormant of night to alteration a motion symbolic in a decades-long ineligible quality successful an Ontario formation town. 

The reddish retro-lettered motion astatine the extremity of Main Street successful the municipality of South Bruce Peninsula read "Welcome to Saugeen Beach" erstwhile prima seekers woke up on Canada Day this week to look retired astatine Lake Huron.  

The motion had antecedently ushered radical to "Sauble Beach," a tourer hotspot since the 1920s. Sporting restaurants and cottages, and municipality and backstage onshore are squeezed betwixt 2 sections of reserve territory belonging to Chippewas of Saugeen First Nation.

Where 1 starts and the different ends is astatine the bosom of what could beryllium a precedent-setting lawsuit successful Canada.

The set declared triumph astatine the extremity of 2024 erstwhile the Ontario Court of Appeal sided with Saugeen First Nation, saying the federal authorities had breached the pact it signed successful 1854. It ruled that roughly 2.2 kilometres of shoreline land incorrectly surveyed successful 1855 should beryllium returned to the First Nation.

The national authorities recognized the mistake successful the 1970s and had supported the First Nation successful its claim.

But lawyers moving for the Town of South Bruce Peninsula and 2 families who bought tons successful the 1940s and '50s are trying via ineligible avenues, 1 last time, to keep hold of the onshore they accidental they rightfully acquired nether the rules and geography of the time.

On Monday, they filed an entreaty they anticipation volition beryllium heard by the Supreme Court of Canada, successful an effort to situation the Appeal Court's decision.

"The effect of the rulings astatine proceedings and connected entreaty is to dispossess the municipality and families of their title, which they acquired lawfully and successful bully faith," the entreaty filing reads.

"While nary of them were recovered to person committed immoderate ineligible incorrect against Saugeen, the proceedings justice recovered that they indispensable 'bear the brunt' of misconduct committed by the Crown alone."

The lawyers reason that the judge's determination whitethorn person been well-intentioned, but it sows uncertainty and unpredictability astatine the halfway of Canada's strategy of backstage landholding.

Environmental changes to shoreline 

Another crushed the lawsuit whitethorn upwind its mode to Canada's top court has to bash with what the onshore looked similar erstwhile it was surveyed successful 1856, 1 twelvemonth aft the pact was signed, compared to what it looks similar today. 

Experts who testified successful the little tribunal agreed that the shoreline of the disputed conception is acold wider now, arsenic effect of receding h2o levels and the accumulation of sand.

It means that the antheral tasked with drafting the archetypal lines for the pact 170 years agone that gave the First Nation "about nine miles and a fractional of Lake Huron coastline" was making his people connected bedewed sand, and not adust land.

Because of however the representation was drawn, and however the shoreline has changed, Saugeen argues that what is present adust land is rightfully theirs and that spot owners are encroaching connected it. 

The proceedings and appeal judges some agreed that portion the "disputed formation could not beryllium fixed to Saugeen astatine the clip of the survey due to the fact that it was submerged successful water, it could beryllium declared portion of the reserve today."

CBC News has reached retired to each of the lawyers and the municipality for comment, but had not received a reply by work time. The main of Saugeen First Nation declined to remark connected the case. 

A spokesperson with the Supreme Court of Canada said determination is nary timeline connected erstwhile a determination volition beryllium made astir whether the lawsuit volition beryllium heard oregon dismissed.