(Bloomberg) — Not far from the Vancouver airport lies an industrial zone of plain, grey warehouses bordered by the Fraser River and serviced by a steady procession of trucks.

Two centuries ago, a village of the Cowichan people occupied the site, their presence and name recorded by a ship’s captain surveying the region. Now the neighborhood is the centre of a fight over Indigenous rights that has property holders across British Columbia wondering if they truly own their land.

The province’s Supreme Court in August ruled the Cowichan have title to 800 acres (3.2 square kilometers) of the industrial zone in the city of Richmond — land worth about $1.3 billion. Far from settling the issue, the ruling has triggered a backlash that is reshaping politics in famously liberal British Columbia, as conservative politicians demand the government uphold property rights. The issue is reverberating nationwide, with Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney telling the House of Commons in April the government “fundamentally disagrees” with the decision.

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Although the decision is being appealed, its effects were immediate.

Richmond’s mayor wrote to property holders, warning their ownership was in question. The affected zone’s biggest developer, Montrose Property Holdings Ltd., said the judgment prompted a lender to pull out of talks to fund a new warehouse. It has also been blamed for scuttling an offer to buy a nearby hotel. Paul Sullivan, a principal at tax consultant Ryan ULC, called the few homes in the zone “currently unsaleable.”

Adding fuel to the controversy, a higher court four months later issued a ruling that means the province must bring all its laws into compliance with a 2007 United Nations declaration on the rights of Indigenous peoples worldwide.

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British Columbia in 2019 passed a law to comply with the UN declaration, with officials thinking they would have years or decades to bring provincial laws into alignment. Instead, the province is now exposed to “a tidal wave of litigation” and “unlimited legal liability,” in the words of BC’s left-wing premier, David Eby, who was the province’s attorney general when that law — known as DRIPA — was passed.

“We know that the vast majority of our laws are not compliant,” he said in an interview. The December decision, he said, means that “any law at any time, any statutory decision could be challenged and overturned.”

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While the Indigenous land rights issue has touched a raw nerve across Canada, it’s most acute in British Columbia — largely due to unfinished business.

Unlike in much of Canada, the British Crown never signed treaties with most of BC’s 204 First Nations. That means their legal relationship to the modern state is still in flux, and their traditional territories remain unceded. The provincial government says it wants to sign treaties now, rather than fight the nations in court. It’s in talks with 29 groups, according to its treaty commission.

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The August ruling, in what has become the longest-running court case in Canadian history, left unresolved the question of how to reconcile Indigenous title with private ownership. Instead, it ordered BC to negotiate with the Cowichan.

Thomas, the Lyackson chief, said her nation isn’t interested in taking anyone’s house. Instead, the group wants to participate in the Vancouver area’s economic future and is still trying to figure out what to do with the land title. The day after the ruling, which also recognized Cowichan fishing rights, fishers were back out on the water, she said.