BC Supreme Court Justice Barbara Young rules in favour of the Cowichan Indian Band Council in their land dispute with the federal government. This means that the Crown no longer has any claim to Crown land. This sets a precedent that puts private property rights at stake.
00:00:00.000Hey guys, Wyatt Claypool here. In this video, I want to give more context to and discuss the situation in the city of Richmond, British Columbia, where a BC Supreme Court Justice, Barbara Young, a Stephen Harper appointee, by the way, ruled in favor of the Cowichan Indigenous Band Council, who were asserting that they had Aboriginal land title over top of areas that the federal government, provincial government, and municipal governments owned.
00:00:29.320But that also put private property rights at stake because, effectively, this decision says the Crown never had any right to have that land, and it is Aboriginal land, which means that even fee simple title private property, which was granted by the Crown, saying that this is zoned for fee simple title land, that that is also basically in dispute.
00:00:52.620The case was not taking away private property rights, but it was obviously setting a precedent that your private property rights sit a little bit lower than Aboriginal land title.
00:01:03.680And so I want to talk a little bit about the political context around this particular decision, and also talk a little bit about the video that Northern Perspectives made.
00:01:14.180I think they're great at research, but I did think they got some aspects of this case wrong.
00:01:19.360They've been saying that people are wrong and saying that this is basically stealing people's private property.
00:01:24.640That is wrong if people were saying that. I don't think any court decision would actually lead to that.
00:01:30.660But I think that they were, in correcting certain people on social media, they ended up overcorrecting and making it seem like this case does not have any implications for private property.
00:01:42.540It absolutely does. Yes, it's not about private property, but it's about Crown land.
00:01:47.800And if the Crown didn't have the right to have Crown land title over any of it, that means that the Crown did not have the ability to grant fee simple title to any of the land,
00:01:59.040which means that down the road, you could end up in a situation where you have to pay a portion of your property taxes to the Cowichan Indigenous Band.
00:02:08.940And by the way, to state it out front, this has nothing to do with the average Cowichan person.
00:02:14.580This is the band council. It's the reconciliation industry lawyers and consultants.
00:02:20.660This is not actually having to do anything with normal Indigenous people.
00:02:25.080In fact, it doesn't benefit them at all.
00:02:27.300Many are still not going to be living in very good areas.
00:02:30.420They do not have individual property rights themselves.
00:02:33.220And this is just basically giving a band council, a government, a bunch of collective rights over a general area of land.
00:02:41.020Again, and it's making a lot of lawyers and consultants rich.
00:02:44.580The political context of this is that all the people who are acting shocked over this decision were helping to engineer it from the start.
00:02:53.520That includes Premier David Eby, that includes John Rustad, as well as the former D.C. Liberal Party, which John Rustad came from and was the Indigenous Affairs and Reconciliation Minister under Christy Clark.
00:03:08.220The man has signed over 400 agreements that look a lot like the agreements that many people have been criticizing from the NDP.
00:03:15.940But now he acts completely divorced from the whole situation.
00:03:19.820And like this is just a random judicial happenstance or it's just reflective of the NDP's inaction.
00:03:28.260No, much of this is actually to do with things that John Rustad was doing a decade ago and voting for just a little over a year ago.
00:03:37.180So I'm going to break this down in a little bit more detail from the previous time I did it.
00:03:43.360But before I get into it, guys, I just want to remind you, if you are in the province of British Columbia, please sign the petition that we have out at the 1BC party because we actually want to defend property rights.
00:03:56.180We actually want to challenge the reconciliation industry, DRIPA, UNDRIPA, and the current constitution in Canada that allows things like this to happen.
00:04:06.440We can't just say that it's wrong and that we should appeal it.
00:07:34.760And though his comments would be more critical a day later, Conservative leader John Rustad,
00:07:42.680a former BC Liberal Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation,
00:07:47.040said in the legislature that he supports title.
00:07:50.480And this is a decision where they were giving the Queen Charlotte Islands, now named Haida Gwaii,
00:07:55.760it was still named Haida Gwaii at this time, but they were giving all the land title, 100% of the land title to the Haida Nation.
00:08:06.140All of it was Haida Nation, which really just means it's Haida Band Council, because let's be clear,
00:08:11.180if you're an individual indigenous person that people on band council don't like,
00:08:15.680they're not going to respect your property.
00:08:17.880There was literally a property on Haida Gwaii that was bulldozed, because the people who owned it were associated with a guy who was a gang member,
00:08:27.800you know, dealing drugs, I think he murdered somebody, bad, but you don't get to bulldoze someone's house for being related to them.
00:08:35.000And that happened, and was given very little criticism.
00:08:38.960But this is the quote from John Rustad at the time,
00:08:42.040quote, this is a path that we need to do to be able to bring predictability, certainty for indigenous and non-indigenous alike,
00:08:50.220Rustad said, adding that economic reconciliation is key,
00:08:54.120quote, the vision of being able to provide for your children and your grandchildren,
00:08:58.640for them to be able to have the future that you want for them,
00:09:01.440is something I think that we all share, all peoples in this province share.
00:09:06.520And then the article goes on to say, although he had some questions,
00:09:09.760Rustad said the bill was an important step, and he supports it, congratulating the Haida.
00:09:14.420He added, quote, I look forward, quite frankly, to make sure that,
00:09:18.320assure that as this process goes forward, the interests of all people in British Columbia
00:09:22.320are taken into consideration so that true reconciliation can be achieved.
00:09:26.860And then he goes on to basically criticize it as an infringement of private property on X.
00:09:31.860But I don't know why he says one thing in the legislature, and then he says the populist thing out front.
00:09:36.540Right now, you have some BC conservative MLAs criticizing this decision.
00:12:44.460And you could say that, well, Section 35 was one of those parts of the Constitution that you can't notwithstanding clause through.
00:12:50.440There's nothing in the Constitution that would suggest that it's an Aboriginal right to be able to claim things like property in the city of Richmond,
00:12:59.060because a long time ago it technically wasn't ceded over, and because it wasn't ceded over, it could still be there.
00:13:07.040If it's unceded and someone, it's called squatter's rights.
00:13:10.820Somebody's been using it, you weren't using it, and now we're not just going to roll back the clock
00:13:15.420and say that that person who was farming in an area that they didn't know was yours,
00:13:18.600now just has to rip all the stuff out of the ground and plow it back over and turn it into just, like, you know, hinterland.
00:13:49.300You will never get a major project built in a lot of areas if that was true,
00:13:53.440and the fact that John basically supports DRIPA and UNDRIP makes this almost impossible.
00:13:58.800Now, he'll say he's against DRIPA, D-R-I-P-A, the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act,
00:14:04.200but then he'll say in the next breath, I support UNDRIP, which is the worst version.
00:14:07.840And then his own executive director, which I showed in my previous video, Angelo Isidoro,
00:14:14.220on a podcast with an actual lefty guy, Mo Amir, who was blown away that he said this,
00:14:19.820he said that DRIPA is effectively now a free vote in caucus because he implied that the three people who used to be part of the party,
00:14:27.300Dallas Brody, Tara Armstrong, and Jordan Keighley,
00:14:30.080that they were very rude to people by thinking that they all had to agree with them,
00:14:34.200even though they wanted people to agree with them on things the B.C. conservatives had in their platform.
00:14:40.440That's apparently intolerant, and that, you know, but, and Angelo heavily implies that DRIPA is one of those things people should be able to disagree on
00:14:48.660because people like Peter Milobar and Alia Warbus are in favor of it.
00:14:54.680By the way, it's like day six or seven, and Alia Warbus has not said a single word because she's a woke person.
00:15:00.460She is a B.C. conservative, M.L.A., from Chilliwack, Cultus Lake,
00:15:05.280and she literally made a documentary celebrating somebody getting a medical transition,
00:20:15.000And it says, however, the Cowichan have not challenged the validity of the private fee simple interests.
00:20:21.060And those interests are valid until such a time as a court may determine otherwise,
00:20:25.440or until conflicting interests are otherwise resolved through negotiations.
00:20:29.140And so it says, while I agree with BC that the private landowner's fee simple interests are valid and remain so for the time being,
00:20:38.720I do not agree that the recognition of the Cowichan's Aboriginal titles is appropriately defined with reference to those interests.
00:20:46.440So basically, it's just that the judge is saying that right now we don't really know if private property rights.
00:20:53.820We have not ruled on it, so we're in stasis right now.
00:20:56.380We will continue with the idea that your private property rights mean something until such a time that we have another case where we rule otherwise.
00:21:05.140And then Jamie Sarkonic here, we read this on the other video, but this is basically saying that I don't think Northern Perspectives may have seen this stuff,
00:21:13.620or maybe they just kind of ignored it.
00:21:25.000We haven't seen the full power of the Aboriginal title.
00:21:27.620The judge implies here that private property is on the chopping block next.
00:21:32.880Because this is one of the judge's points.
00:21:35.160It says, finally, BC submits that the plaintiff's contention that a declaration of invalidity would not impact private interests is of little comfort.
00:21:47.440The only comfort of the plaintiff's offer non-party landowners is their assertion in this proceeding that they do not seek to invalidate those fee simple titles.
00:21:57.400The basis on which they seek a declaration of invalidity against Richmond and Canada, the FPA, could be turned against the private landowners next.
00:22:06.900And then it goes on to say, and then Jamie says, in this spectacular rollercoaster of a paragraph, the judge scolds Richmond's lawyers for bringing up a big picture concerns about what his will will do to the economy, what this will do to the economy, and the integrity of the property system.
00:22:23.600And then she agrees with them on yellow.
00:22:25.740I just want to jump down to the yellow part because this is the part that is very telling.
00:22:30.600It says, a precedent that will follow from this case is that the provincial crown grants of fee simple interest do not extinguish nor permanently displace aboriginal title.
00:22:47.040It's not here, but they say that we don't have to determine how much aboriginal title exists in the context that private property rights are already there.
00:22:56.620We have to determine how much private property rights still exist now that we've recognized aboriginal title if that case is brought.
00:23:04.740So, yes, this does affect private property.
00:23:07.760No one's home is being stolen from them, like some people may have said.
00:23:10.980But it's also not a case where it has nothing to do with private property.
00:23:14.780Does the literal case have nothing to do with it?
00:23:17.220Does what the judge was directly ruling on have nothing to do with it?
00:23:20.600Yes, but the implications of the case, the precedent, and the judge's comments have to do with a simple interest being undermined.
00:23:29.040So, I will probably just leave it there.
00:23:31.400Again, Northern Perspectives does great research, and they are correct in debunking people who are claiming things like,
00:23:39.980this is your land being stolen from you, you're going to have your property confiscated.
00:23:43.600No, but you could imagine a world where the Cowichan indigenous band could argue that while, yes, you have your private property already there,
00:23:55.000and they have no interest in taking it from you, because probably a court wouldn't let them go that far,
00:23:59.820they could say, well, because we own the land, in effect, it's our land title,
00:24:05.080the city or you directly must pay us a certain portion of property taxes, because it's our property.
00:24:12.260That's where you could see this going.
00:24:13.800Yeah, are you going to have your home confiscated?
00:24:16.180No, but maybe they can block certain things from being built without oversight from them, without extra sign-off.