The question that dominated a Richmond public meeting this week on the impact of a recent court decision on Aboriginal title was a simple one: “Why weren’t we told sooner?”
Residents had learned just this month, courtesy of a letter from Mayor Malcolm Brodie, that the B.C. Supreme Court decision recognizing Aboriginal title over hundreds of acres of city land could have a “negative impact” on private land within the area.
They had heard Premier David Eby say that the mayor’s concerns were warranted and that residents were right to be worried — and not just residents of Richmond. “It is a big deal,” said the premier.
Yet the case dates back 10 years. And as far back as eight years ago, the court had wrestled with whether to notify private landowners about the implications of a declaration of Aboriginal title.
So why were landowners and residents only learning about it now?
[…]
The judge worried that if the court ordered formal notifications to private landowners it could be swamped with applications from them for standing.
“It would for all practical purposes put a halt to these proceedings,” Power ruled. Plus, the Cowichan Tribes “do not seek at this stage to invalidate fee-simple interests held by private landowners.”
Note: “At this stage.” In the event Cowichan were to revise its intentions in future, the private landowners could then proceed to court and file a complaint that “they were not given formal notice” earlier.
Do you have a mortgage on your property in Richmond?
From the comments: The judge, Barbara Young, seems to have rediscovered her aboriginal family history in 2015.
Sam Cooper, X on this topic…
“This strikes me as Canadian elitist Justice posture. The homeowners should have had standing. ‘The judge worried that if the court ordered formal notifications to private landowners it could be swamped with applications from them for standing.
“It would for all practical purposes put a halt to these proceedings,” Power ruled. Plus, the Cowichan Tribes “do not seek at this stage to invalidate fee-simple interests held by private landowners.”
Note: “At this stage.” In the event Cowichan were to revise its intentions in future, the private landowners could then proceed to court and file a complaint that “they were not given formal notice” earlier.”
https://x.com/scoopercooper/status/1983867426077806692
Sam Cooper:
“The contentious issue of the Cowichan Nation court ruling brought out all three faces of the B.C. NDP government on Tuesday: the one that talks tough behind closed doors, the one that equivocates to the media and the one that gaslights you by saying the opposite.”
https://x.com/scoopercooper/status/1983861111309877340
re-X of Elenore Sturko MLA Surrey-Cloverdale
“Yesterday behind closed doors with media, the NDP admitted that Aboriginal title & fee-simple title can not co-exist in the same land, in their full form, at the same time.”
Well yes, that’s going to be the result.
Huh? Another ROTTEN Judge … actively denying the RIGHTS of the accused. The RIGHTS of legal landowners. Withholding rightful claims of property owners. All these Judges need to be treated the exact same way as the leftist Prosecutor in the alleged DUKE Lacrosse rape case … complete humiliation and disbarment by deliberately withholding exculpatory evidence. This Judge withheld the exculpatory evidence of LANDOWNERS standing in this case.
The decision should be vacated, and the Judge disbarred, dismissed and fined.
According to her Wikipedia article, “practiced primarily in family law, personal injury and bankruptcy.” Definitely qualified!
She should have stuck to Nursing. Canada NEEDS more nurses than it needs more lawyers.
She practised in bankruptcy? Moral, or intellectual?
Did the judge identify as an aboriginal?
https://x.com/korea_ufo/status/1983874475033805004
The judge, Barbara Young, seems to have re discovered her aboriginal
family history in 2015. see https://gangsterismout.com/?p=11162
If accurate, this makes for interesting background info? For instance –
“While the press are filling in details of the property effected by the Cowichan Tribes v. Canada, 2025 BCSC 1490 ruling, we have yet to see a single reporter fill in the details of the Justice who made that ruling. Barbara M. Young was grossly inexperienced and completely unqualifed by virtue of obtaining her position on the British Columbia Supreme Court through a Bill C-31 hire, which perferred her over far more qualified candidates because she is a native woman.”
Wow!
The judicial rulings of indigenous title to Crown land will lead to all Crown land being under indigenous title with the next obvious logical step including all private land as Crown land was never ceded or “stolen” in treaties, the Crown had no legitimacy in granting fee simple ownership. At that point, there is no state of Canada nor subsidiary governments nor laws. Aside from having a war to explicitly extinguish “title”, perhaps the ruling of title to any Crown land to any tribe includes the extinguishment of all status under the Indian Act, freeing the enslaved taxpayers from their indigenous masters. I suspect this would require a constitutional amendment so it might easier to break up the deranged dominion and stand up to the slave-taking Chiefs without their taxpayer-funded lawyers and Trudeau’s constitution in hand.
… a provincial NDP (commie) party causing real headaches for the federal Liberal (commie) party
who will be pressed into addressing this issue which they’ve successfully ignored for +150 years;
the simple (and 99% supported) solution would be to finally enshrine private property rights into Canadian law.
We know they can’t do that because Beijing.
Fun to watch pinkos squirm.
Solution is to drive the non Indians off the land and cede the land to the local Indians. The hard part is retaining control of the tribes after the fact.
Well in order that we don’t make the same mistake twice, we should give all the land back to them and then declare war on them. That is the big difference between the situation in the U.S. and Canada.
“The judge [J.A. Power of the B.C. Supreme Court] worried that if the court ordered formal notifications to private landowners it could be swamped with applications from them for standing.”
So he denied them standing on the basis that they might get standing in the court, and it would complicate the corrupt process going on to screw the people who held fee-simple titles.
So, here’s a question: Just because there were not treaties, how could the land be considered unceded when it was technically annexed by the Crown when BC was declared a province? All your base are belong to us.
L – Are judicial decisions, based on identity politics(Cult. Marxism), turning many of B.C. residents from being property owners into leasing their home from a Tribal Band Council, under what could be raised to the equivalent of ticket scalper prices?
Would some of them be able to move their homes onto land, they could own under fee simple?
i think we should have a ban or embargo on all 1st nations businesses and casinos. why give them any more of our money
Citizens in Vancouver are wondering how this happened?
Could it be they voted for it?
The question that anyone hoping to fight this needs the court to respond to is
How many generations does ones family need to have lived in Canada before they are seen by the “charter” as being indigenous?
There’s no putting this genie back in the bottle. One decision by one judge in one province has ripped apart a hundred years of bedrock understanding of private property rights…without even bothering to give standing to the current property owners. There is unceded land all over Canada, particularly in BC, Atlantic provinces, the Territories and large parts of Ontario and Quebec. All of the property rights of current owners will likely be in dispute. No one – not homeowners, business, banks, corporations or mining companies – will be confident enough to buy, sell or invest in these areas.
The prairies (Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba) are not unceded land because they are covered by legal treaties. There are compensation disputes from time to time but not like the property rights issues that are now occurring on Canadian land not covered by treaties. Unless the legality of the treaties themselves are disputed, property rights in prairie provinces should be upheld.
God help us?
https://x.com/BenTallmadge01/status/1983713917387075934
Perhaps residents of British Columbia can invoke a radical form of squatter’s rights since it’s obvious their provincial government has no intention of protecting residents property rights.
This craziness reminds me of a warning that came out last year: RCMP report warns Canadians may revolt once they realize how broke they are.
“Right from the get-go, the report authors warn that whatever Canada’s current situation, it “will probably deteriorate further in the next five years.”
https://mackenzieinstitute.com/2024/03/secret-rcmp-report-warns-canadians-may-revolt-once-they-realize-how-broke-they-are/
The judge is Indigenous, and the Minister of Indigenous affair’s husband was born and raised in Fiji.
Nothing fishy about that at all /S.
Lotusland has entered the hard times phase of history.
I can’t see how this ends well for BC. Even if they appeal it’ll take a decade (decades?) to resolve, if ever. No one will want to purchase residential, commercial or industrial land until it’s settled. BCs economy will go into freefall. Big international investors with insider information might get BC property for pennies on the dollar before all is said and done.
Between this in BC and Ontario’s current economic problems, there will be only 2 provinces with “have” status for equalization and 8 provinces will be “have not”. Anyone think Alberta and Saskatchewan, 2 provinces with a population of less than 6 million, can suppprt 34 million people in the 8 other provinces? Yet another reason to cut the rest of Canada loose and free ourselves of this insane asylum. Canada is not just circling the toilet bowl, they are in the pipe and halfway to the sewage lagoon.
That might also be a good explanation for the threatened general strike by Alberta government employees (their reason of solidarity with teachers is clearly crap).
Who knows. From my experience, the union executive does not always reflect the opinion of union members. I’m also not sure a general strike would force an Alberta election. If it did, I’m pretty sure the ucp can point to BC as a warning of what happens when you vote NDP.
Didn’t Premier Smith reform the election voting and counting process? If yes. then that hurts the left. If no, then that’s why the unions might want an early election.
Yep. Canada, say good-bye to title insurance. That industry will drop you after this ruling, just like it did Mexico after it actually had to pay a claim one time. Like a set of car keys. THAT should help make the housing slump permanent. Apparently just the way Ottawa likes it. My condolences are sincere.
Tribal land…or Crown land? Your Indian Act doesn’t really give the tribes complete autonomy over any land considered theirs; they have to meet certain requirements.
And don’t think the western prairie is immune — over 60% of Alberta and Saskatchewan is Crown land, 90% for Manitoba. If they want to give it to the Indians, they will (and they might, just to stick it to you). Good luck with that independence movement.
And the natives will be quite easily contained — just look at their situation and tell me they are not easily handled, and now your government (and who they really work for; hint: not you) has found a(nother) very nice way of easily handling you.
The crown land in prairie provinces is owned and administered by the provincial government, not the federal government. The land belongs to the province and its residents through the treaties. Alberta and Saskatchewan would not give that land away. It would be political suicide, even for the NDP. Unlike the unceded land, a rogue judgement by a single judge can’t throw away property rights so easily in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
Well except the treaties in Alberta and Saskatchewan specifically turn the land over. For example, Treaty Six says….
“The Plain and Wood Cree Tribes of Indians, and all other the Indians inhabiting the district hereinafter described and defined, do hereby cede, release, surrender and yield up to the Government of the Dominion of Canada, for Her Majesty the Queen and Her successors forever, all their rights, titles and privileges, whatsoever, to the lands included within the following limits, that is to say”:
and then follows the boundaries.
Did anyone think that having #RubberChuckie read a land-claim acknowledgement in #Parliament before the assembled MPs of Canaduh was not going to have repercussions?
Elbows up, stupid Normies.
The Indian giveth and the Indian taketh away.
How are the borders of Indian land defined? Did the border with the United States clearly follow the borders of the various tribes lands? If not, is the border between the United States and Canada valid?
Did the United States extinguish aboriginal title properly? Was the process they used valid for British/Canadian purposes? Remember, there were issues in the Oregon territory back in the 1840s~1850s. There was an agreement between Britain and the United States on lands jurisdiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Treaty
Related to Saskatchewan lands, the present indian tribes did not have aboriginal title to those lands. They were brought into the area by the white man to trap furs as the original indians, the Gros Ventre and the Blackfoot, did not trap beaver. The Cree came with guns and genocided the Gros Ventre. They also fought the Blackfoot and drove them south.
The Americans signed treaty with the Blackfoot and Gros Ventre in the mid 1850s. Their requirement that those indians stay on reservations opened up the Saskatchewan and Alberta territories for migration of the present indians.
How “valid” the border is depends on the point of view. From the point of view of the police and armed forces, it’s entirely valid. From the point of view of the Blackfoot, whose country it runs across, it’s no more valid than any other unavoidable nuisance that’s messing up the floor. And yet, you can’t just ignore the mess.
More technically, the US border was not defined in terms of natives, but of the lay of the land. The HBC claimed up to the height of the land, and so did the French at New Orleans. So the border notionally ran along the Lesser Divide from the Rockies to the Canadian Shield. The French at Montreal claimed generally up to the Lesser Divide, but they also claimed the Grand Portage route over the Divide to the Lake of the Woods. The British and French agreed that the notional frontier could be closely approximated by the much more easily surveyed and controlled line of the 49th parallel from the head of the Lesser Divide at Waterton to the Lake of the Woods, and that agreed boundary was the limit of French America when the Americans bought it. Natives had nothing to do with it and dealt with it as best they could.
C’mon BC. DO IT! Give every square inch to the natives. In very short order it will be like an episode of Life After People. Let the great spirit bears roam freely in Kitsilano once more.
2nd link doesn’t work?
Time for a new Conquest of the land.