What is the test for admitting expert historical opinion evidence?

It can be helpful to admit expert historical opinion evidence to assist the court in arriving at inferences and/or conclusions regarding historical facts. This general statement however, must be tempered by the court’s overriding jurisdiction to interpret statutes and treaties. In the words of the British Columbia Supreme Court per McEachern, J.: It is accordingly my judgment that qualified experts may give many useful opinions, based on inferences from the documents about recorded facts of history in order to explain matters in issue, but they may not, in my view, either construe a written document which is the province of the court, or generalize upon the broad sweep of history which is so often subject to learned disagreement and revision. (See: Delgamuuku v. British Columbia supra at p. 6; see also: Fairford First Nations v. Canada 1998 CanLII 7218 (FC), [1998] F.C.J. No. 47.)