On Thursday, a B.C. superior court judge gave at least half a billion dollars’ worth of government land in an 800-acre zone in southeast Richmond to the Cowichan First Nation, and lit a fuse that could lead to the obliteration of private landowners’ legal title in the area.
This case of “land back” in action (Cowichan Tribes v. Canada) casts a shadow over the country’s property system. It jeopardizes the default means of owning land in Canada — the estate in fee simple, where owners have exclusive rights to sell land — wherever Aboriginal title is found to exist.
It takes only a few minutes of listening to right-wing politicians and podcasters to understand why their message appeals to so many young men in Canada, who increasingly feel that society has abandoned them in favour of women, racial and sexual minorities and the moneyed classes. Conservatives have sold them on the idea that they represent the true counterculture, rising up against the excesses and iniquities of the left-wing establishment that have kept them from finding a job or partner or affordable home.
