A lawyer for tenants of a mobile home park on Songhees First Nation reserve land on Vancouver Island says his clients are "absolutely crushed" after losing a lawsuit challenging their evictions.
A ruling posted Tuesday says the residents of E. George Estates Manufactured Home Park have lived there for decades, and believed they'd have a "long-term or perpetual interest" in the lands even though they didn't own the properties.
The park was established in the 1970s and the Songhees First Nation took control of it in 2019, then moved two years later to end tenancies of the plaintiffs who are not members of the nation.
The ruling says the reserve is overcrowded and the First Nation wants to develop the lands for "much-needed housing for its members," telling plaintiffs in June 2021 that they'd have to move out in three years.
Justice Veronica Jackson's ruling says the court has "a great deal of sympathy" for the plaintiffs, many of them elderly with health problems, but mobile home park tenants anywhere face the prospect of lease terminations, and three years' notice was "more than reasonable."
Lawyer Michael Drouillard, representing the 30 plaintiffs, says his clients are "overwhelmed" at the prospect of having to leave, and have been given until Aug. 15 to vacate under threat of having their utilities turned off.
Drouillard said he has filed an appeal of the ruling, which he said the court delayed releasing publicly for a month "to respect the privacy of the plaintiffs during a period of transition."
He said the decision was "absolutely crushing" to the plaintiffs.
"Most of them, their finances are now wiped out because they paid a lot of money for these homes that they now have to move and which are actually not really capable of being moved as a practical matter because of the costs and logistics involved," he said.
He said one of the plaintiffs had a stroke and is no longer able to take care of himself, and others lack a support network to help them figure out what to do now that they've lost the case.
"It's very overwhelming for these folks," he said.
The ruling says many of the tenant plaintiffs were under the mistaken impression the mobile home park lands were covered by a 99-year lease, but instead were month-to-month tenants.
It says some thought that if they paid their rent and taxes and followed park rules "they could stay forever."
The judge said the situation facing the tenants has been a source of "tremendous personal hardship and financial distress."
"However, the situation is not of the Songhees Nation’s making," Jackson ruled. "None of the plaintiffs were ever entitled to a long-term interest in their sites."
Drouillard said he has filed an appeal, and worries that some tenants are at "immediate risk of homelessness" if they're forced to leave by the deadline set out in a letter sent by the Songhees First Nation on July 15.
"The reason why I'm saying they're at heightened risk for homelessness is because this eviction has both required them to leave, but it's also annihilated their life savings," he said.
Lawyer Kaelan Unrau for the Songhees First Nation said his client wasn't immediately available for comment on the court's ruling.
The ruling says the park was established in the 1970s and operated by a company owned by a First Nation member who later died, before the First Nation took it over.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 23, 2025.
Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press
