The Globe and Mail's Tanya Talaga was handed the early tip on the graves story before May 21. She got it wrong then and continues to get it wrong 5 years later, in the same newspaper. So I view the Globe's apology as incomplete.
The apology is incomplete also in saying, "OK, there may not be any bodies at the Kamloops school but there are 3000-odd children who *did* die in schools around the country", without acknowledging that Indian children who never attended a school died on their home Reserves at high rates as well from the same diseases. Better and more food in the schools than was available at home almost certainly prevented some TB deaths, which the children acquired as infants and pre-schoolers *AT HOME BEFORE* attending the school.
It's very likely that notwithstanding some bad treatment, not a single Indian child died *because* of having attended a residential school. But the damage is done. As a result of the hoax, Parliament unanimously endorsed Leah Gazan's resolution that the res schools were actual, real, physical, murderous genocide. And if she gets her way it will be illegal to "deny" any of this.
They also weren't "snatched" from their homes, unless the RCMP came to apprehend them from abusive and neglectful alcoholic parents.
An exhausting read but well worth the time. I’m going to go out in a limb here and suggest that Terry Glavin is not an immediate candidate for the Order of Canada, even thought it’s well deserved
What it means that at my age my powers of concentration are not what they were 50 or 60 years ago and on longer serious reads such as this, it takes me a bit longer to stop and digest wgat I’ve read before continuing. If this explanation doesn’t satisfy you, then I have nothing to add
“There are about 100 privately-owned properties involved. The B.C. court found that in the case of privately-owned land, Aboriginal title and fee simple title can be made to co-exist, and any conflicts between the two are to be sorted out between the Crown and the First Nation involved.” Ok then. I've never met anyone who claimed this was the end of Canada or who wet their pants over this issue although those people may exist. I do feel very sorry for the property owners who have had their title now subject to being “sorted out” at some future date between the first nation involved and the crown. I would imagine the homes in question would command a much smaller price were the owners to sell subsequent to the court decision. The critiques aimed at this situation that I’ve read struck me as measured and rational. It doesn’t surprise me that other property owners beyond the 100 might feel that the house and associated land they’ve spent a significant portion of their wealth acquiring could at some point be subject to similar treatment. Terry’s work on this file is excellent and much needed but I don’t understand his view on this particular issue.
My "view" on this subject is we shouldn't wet our pants about this. That is not to say the persistence of aboriginal title as a burden on Crown title underlying private property is not a potential concern. It is also perfectly valid to worry about how the BC government will go about the work of resolving this, and what the implications of the
UNDRIP doctrines may be for securing cession of aboriginal title in exchange for treaty benefits. But pretending aboriginal title isn't real, or that it's just "political correctness gone mad," or that it can be simply and magically "extinguished," won't make it go away. It's still there because we are not savages, we are not Americans, and British and Canadian constitutional law does not purport to sanctify land theft for the purpose of settlement or civilization. All I ask is that we make an effort to report about this issue accurately and fairly.
I wonder if Terry is attaching too much credence to the stated claim made by the Cowichans that they aren't coming after anybody's house. So the homeowner won't get dispossessed if that pledge holds good. Great. Wholly decent of them. But he (the homeowner I mean, not Terry) might not be able to sell his house and land if his fee-simple title has to co-exist (whatever that means -- nothing can co-exist with fee simple by definition) with the undischarged aboriginal title because the Crown, who deeded it to the first fee simple owner, never had full unencumbered title. No clear title today,-> no mortgage tomorrow. If you can't sell something, it is valueless to anyone but yourself.
The Indians probably don't want anybody's house. The winery and the Coca-Cola bottling plant look interesting though. But the Cowichans' real beef is with the Canadian and BC Crowns because the Crowns will probably pay them many billions of dollars to make the aboriginal title encumbrances go away. The title business is just to make the Crowns sweat more (with restive property owners agitating for the Crown to pay off the Indians with tax money so their title is made good) instead of dragging the negotiations out for decades. So even if no property seizures occur, the Crown's taxpayers at large will have to shell out big-time in order that the affected property owners can get clear title.
There's no need for any exhorbitant costs at all in ensuring clear title for every fee simple interest in B.C. against claims of aboriginal title burdening the Crown title that underlies those fee simple interests.
A clear legislative action would probably suffice. An SCOC judgment clarifying the Cowichan decision to a "finding" rather than a "declaration" (as in New Brunswick) would be one simple way to do it. A negotated resolution of the sort the judge in the Cowichan case gave BC and the tribes 18 months to conclude is another way.
As in all the other long, drawn out aboriginal title cases in BC, the hundreds and hundreds of pages of each judgement that goes against BC and Ottawa can be reduced to a single sentence: That's what you get for being assholes.
It's easy for the aboriginals to say to us, "That's what you get for your ancestor land agents now long dead being assholes. Now pay us big time or clear off." I think as a matter of national principle we have to take the position that this is adversarial language and refute it: "The fact that our ancestors were assholes has no bearing on the current matter." It is reckless and self-hating in the extreme for a non-aboriginal Canadian to accept that because some people in our past were assholes it contaminates and delegitimizes everything that came after. That's what an enemy would say, not someone who has to live here. You sound almost gleeful and gloating that because of decisions made nigh on 200 years ago, Canada should be put in a serious pickle about land ownership.
You know any negotiated resolution is going to cost billions. That's why the Cowichans launched the claim: to get money. For the province to simply legislate that aboriginal title is extinguished everywhere that fee simple has been declared would go against this very Court decision that says it isn't extinguished until the aboriginals cede it to the Crown first. And if that would work, why hasn't the BC government already legislated that? Because it doesn't dare.
And neither you nor I have any control over what the Supreme Court of Canada might judge here. Be nice if they would call it a finding rather than a declaration. But the Indians won't like that. We don't know what will happen if they lose an important case at the Supreme Court because they never have.
You mean one of the properties within the specific claim area? Depends if I liked the house, of course, and given the craziness about how the properties are now valueless, I'd probably get a real bargain.
Two things made me wary of Reconciliation and Graves. They put barbers in charge of the, "should people get more haircuts", question. And, it struck me curious that Christians would chuck kids in the clay under cover of darkness.
Thank you, Terry, for your research and writing. I am Anishinaabe, as was my mother, who was in a residential school along with two aunts. My father was French (distantly, Metis) and Scottish, mainly. I, like many, am influenced by a mixed bag of culture, language, etc. History, and the news stories that contribute to that, are best served by facts. I deeply appreciate your efforts to shine a bright light on those facts in all your work. Your side-dish of humour helps. Keep going.
It seems the renaming of roads buildings squares and anything else associated with this story is also ongoing as well as all buildings streets now having indigenous unpronouncable names.Also the veto powers they have been given to stop anything from proceeding in canada thanks to the liberals.
The Globe and Mail's Tanya Talaga was handed the early tip on the graves story before May 21. She got it wrong then and continues to get it wrong 5 years later, in the same newspaper. So I view the Globe's apology as incomplete.
I had a whole section on Talaga. But there's only so much room. . .
The apology is incomplete also in saying, "OK, there may not be any bodies at the Kamloops school but there are 3000-odd children who *did* die in schools around the country", without acknowledging that Indian children who never attended a school died on their home Reserves at high rates as well from the same diseases. Better and more food in the schools than was available at home almost certainly prevented some TB deaths, which the children acquired as infants and pre-schoolers *AT HOME BEFORE* attending the school.
It's very likely that notwithstanding some bad treatment, not a single Indian child died *because* of having attended a residential school. But the damage is done. As a result of the hoax, Parliament unanimously endorsed Leah Gazan's resolution that the res schools were actual, real, physical, murderous genocide. And if she gets her way it will be illegal to "deny" any of this.
They also weren't "snatched" from their homes, unless the RCMP came to apprehend them from abusive and neglectful alcoholic parents.
An exhausting read but well worth the time. I’m going to go out in a limb here and suggest that Terry Glavin is not an immediate candidate for the Order of Canada, even thought it’s well deserved
I hear you, Sheldon. It was pretty exhausting to write, too. Thanks for your kind comment.
An exhausting read?
What does that even mean?
What it means that at my age my powers of concentration are not what they were 50 or 60 years ago and on longer serious reads such as this, it takes me a bit longer to stop and digest wgat I’ve read before continuing. If this explanation doesn’t satisfy you, then I have nothing to add
Thanks, Terry. Looking forward to Part III.
“There are about 100 privately-owned properties involved. The B.C. court found that in the case of privately-owned land, Aboriginal title and fee simple title can be made to co-exist, and any conflicts between the two are to be sorted out between the Crown and the First Nation involved.” Ok then. I've never met anyone who claimed this was the end of Canada or who wet their pants over this issue although those people may exist. I do feel very sorry for the property owners who have had their title now subject to being “sorted out” at some future date between the first nation involved and the crown. I would imagine the homes in question would command a much smaller price were the owners to sell subsequent to the court decision. The critiques aimed at this situation that I’ve read struck me as measured and rational. It doesn’t surprise me that other property owners beyond the 100 might feel that the house and associated land they’ve spent a significant portion of their wealth acquiring could at some point be subject to similar treatment. Terry’s work on this file is excellent and much needed but I don’t understand his view on this particular issue.
My "view" on this subject is we shouldn't wet our pants about this. That is not to say the persistence of aboriginal title as a burden on Crown title underlying private property is not a potential concern. It is also perfectly valid to worry about how the BC government will go about the work of resolving this, and what the implications of the
UNDRIP doctrines may be for securing cession of aboriginal title in exchange for treaty benefits. But pretending aboriginal title isn't real, or that it's just "political correctness gone mad," or that it can be simply and magically "extinguished," won't make it go away. It's still there because we are not savages, we are not Americans, and British and Canadian constitutional law does not purport to sanctify land theft for the purpose of settlement or civilization. All I ask is that we make an effort to report about this issue accurately and fairly.
I wonder if Terry is attaching too much credence to the stated claim made by the Cowichans that they aren't coming after anybody's house. So the homeowner won't get dispossessed if that pledge holds good. Great. Wholly decent of them. But he (the homeowner I mean, not Terry) might not be able to sell his house and land if his fee-simple title has to co-exist (whatever that means -- nothing can co-exist with fee simple by definition) with the undischarged aboriginal title because the Crown, who deeded it to the first fee simple owner, never had full unencumbered title. No clear title today,-> no mortgage tomorrow. If you can't sell something, it is valueless to anyone but yourself.
The Indians probably don't want anybody's house. The winery and the Coca-Cola bottling plant look interesting though. But the Cowichans' real beef is with the Canadian and BC Crowns because the Crowns will probably pay them many billions of dollars to make the aboriginal title encumbrances go away. The title business is just to make the Crowns sweat more (with restive property owners agitating for the Crown to pay off the Indians with tax money so their title is made good) instead of dragging the negotiations out for decades. So even if no property seizures occur, the Crown's taxpayers at large will have to shell out big-time in order that the affected property owners can get clear title.
There's no need for any exhorbitant costs at all in ensuring clear title for every fee simple interest in B.C. against claims of aboriginal title burdening the Crown title that underlies those fee simple interests.
A clear legislative action would probably suffice. An SCOC judgment clarifying the Cowichan decision to a "finding" rather than a "declaration" (as in New Brunswick) would be one simple way to do it. A negotated resolution of the sort the judge in the Cowichan case gave BC and the tribes 18 months to conclude is another way.
As in all the other long, drawn out aboriginal title cases in BC, the hundreds and hundreds of pages of each judgement that goes against BC and Ottawa can be reduced to a single sentence: That's what you get for being assholes.
It's easy for the aboriginals to say to us, "That's what you get for your ancestor land agents now long dead being assholes. Now pay us big time or clear off." I think as a matter of national principle we have to take the position that this is adversarial language and refute it: "The fact that our ancestors were assholes has no bearing on the current matter." It is reckless and self-hating in the extreme for a non-aboriginal Canadian to accept that because some people in our past were assholes it contaminates and delegitimizes everything that came after. That's what an enemy would say, not someone who has to live here. You sound almost gleeful and gloating that because of decisions made nigh on 200 years ago, Canada should be put in a serious pickle about land ownership.
You know any negotiated resolution is going to cost billions. That's why the Cowichans launched the claim: to get money. For the province to simply legislate that aboriginal title is extinguished everywhere that fee simple has been declared would go against this very Court decision that says it isn't extinguished until the aboriginals cede it to the Crown first. And if that would work, why hasn't the BC government already legislated that? Because it doesn't dare.
And neither you nor I have any control over what the Supreme Court of Canada might judge here. Be nice if they would call it a finding rather than a declaration. But the Indians won't like that. We don't know what will happen if they lose an important case at the Supreme Court because they never have.
I don’t mean this maliciously, Terry, but would you buy one of the properties in question, given the overlapping spheres of influence?
That is, assuming you could get a mortgage in the first place?
You mean one of the properties within the specific claim area? Depends if I liked the house, of course, and given the craziness about how the properties are now valueless, I'd probably get a real bargain.
Two things made me wary of Reconciliation and Graves. They put barbers in charge of the, "should people get more haircuts", question. And, it struck me curious that Christians would chuck kids in the clay under cover of darkness.
Thank you, Terry, for your research and writing. I am Anishinaabe, as was my mother, who was in a residential school along with two aunts. My father was French (distantly, Metis) and Scottish, mainly. I, like many, am influenced by a mixed bag of culture, language, etc. History, and the news stories that contribute to that, are best served by facts. I deeply appreciate your efforts to shine a bright light on those facts in all your work. Your side-dish of humour helps. Keep going.
Thanks you a million times, Cynthia. We'll get through this somehow. The latest, up just now: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/terry-glavin-the-lefts-idea-of-residential-school-denialism-is-a-conspiracy-theory
In a world of Rachel Gilmores be a Terry Glavin.
My biggest regrets are the ones where I proclaim “I should have known better”, or, “I knew better.”
Rather than beat myself up, I pledge to do better next time.
The Leftover Media in Canada show no such sense of shame, and we continue to live with the consequences today.
Great article, Terry.
It seems the renaming of roads buildings squares and anything else associated with this story is also ongoing as well as all buildings streets now having indigenous unpronouncable names.Also the veto powers they have been given to stop anything from proceeding in canada thanks to the liberals.
Glad the Cowichan thing is meaningless.
I guess someone should inform the BC NDP who are committing electoral suicide over it.
Nobody said it was meaningless.