By Cristin Schmitz ( February 2, 2018, 4:22 PM EST) -- In a boost for historic First Nations claims and the largely unheralded work of the Specific Claims Tribunal (SCT), a divided Supreme Court of Canada has restored the tribunal’s ruling that the Colony of British Columbia breached its fiduciary obligation to preserve the lands of the Williams Lake Indian Band from white settlement before Confederation — and that the federal Crown is responsible for that breach, as well as for Ottawa’s own failure to meet its obligations to the band after B.C. joined Confederation in 1871....