Meh, as this is still being discussed/debated between gov and FN, and the courts have stuck their foot in too, I think it’s misleading to make statements with any certainty as to what the end result will be – the article implying the owners are totally fine, because the writer can’t imagine them being forced to leave their homes, doesn’t really do the situation justice.
What defenders of this process who bang the drum of “no no! Private property’s fine! Don’t blame FN, private property owners will be totally fine!” don’t seem to be factoring, is that the uncertainty itself is enough to wipe out house values, cause sales/developments to fall through, and so on. And that damage can be done beyond just “instantly losing your home” (which I don’t think many people thought would be happening anyhow, so it’s sorta a straw man in the article).
Because sure, there may be a ‘settlement’ where the private property owner keeps their title as is. There may be a requirement that they need to sell it to the FN when it comes time to sell, and that’d be at a discounted price (essentially shifting it to a 99 year lease like other FN properties that gets sold to non-FN). There could be some government buy outs, transferring the property at ‘fair’ market values as of just prior the ruling, which could make any development of that land at this point, pointless. No one knows. I can’t imagine many private businesses/owners wanting to take that sort of gamble on these properties. Especially when it’s a risk that’s entirely outside of your control as an owner.
That uncertainty is what tanks the prices. Those owners are basically screwed, at the very least, until there’s clarity on how the situation is going to get resolved – and likely longer.
It’s true that there is plenty of alarmism when it comes to the potential outcomes of this decision, and I’ve uttered my criticism to one such piece shared to Lemmy.
I think this article goes to far doing the same thing but taking the opposite conclusion, that this decision has absolutely no effect on private property holders. The fact I keep returning to that makes this so murky for me is that Musqueam and Tsawwassen also assert competing Aboriginal title rights that appear to be awarded to the Cowichan alliance instead of other nearby bands.
The court made a decision (I won’t accuse them of brashness or extremism as this is after years of deliberation and fact-finding) that awards the Cowichan these rights, which although an analysis I read says it covers only Crown and lower level government owned land, the Aboriginal title system supersedes in some respects the fee simple one, and exists along it or in other ways needs reconcilition in others.
People will naturally have questions and concerns about what this means about private property ownership in the area, just like the appealing Indigenous groups wondering about the effect of this decision on their own treaty claims. Seizures under owners’ noses won’t happen, but it’s like if your house or apartment is now ordered by a court to be part of a Homeowners’ Association that you didn’t sign up for, because of ill guarantees made by the Government a long time ago that you never heard about. It will affect property owners in some way in the process of requiring negotiation to reconcile competing guarantees the Crown has made. Even if nothing on paper changes to Land Title Act entitlements, the fact that Aboriginal title needs to be reconciled does affect what those entitlements are ultimately worth.
