We have reanalyzed the $pi ^{pm} p$ scattering data at low energy in the Coulomb-nuclear interference region as measured by the CHAOS group at TRIUMF with the aim to determine the pion-nucleon $sigma$ term. The resulting value $sigma=(44pm 12)$ MeV,
while in agreement with lattice QCD calculations and compatible with other recent analyses, is significantly lower than that from the GWU-TRIUMF analysis of 2002.
