The Wolastoqey Nation’s title claim over more than half of New Brunswick has been the subject of two days of arguments about whether land privately owned by forestry companies should be excluded from the litigation. The Wolastoqey say exclusion would amount to putting the property interests of private industry over the constitutional rights of the First Nation. The matter is before the New Brunswick Court of Appeal this week after a judgment last year that removed the industrial defendants from the lawsuit. …Renée Pelletier, lawyer for the Wolastoqey, says just because the companies were removed from the lawsuit doesn’t mean their land can’t be touched. “If the effect is that once the Crown gives the land away it can never be returned to the First Nation, there’s an injustice there,” Pelletier said. The Wolastoqey seek the return of the land owned by the industrial defendants — mainly the forestry companies.