Good articles on Aboriginal title and the Cowichan decision

There has been a spate of thoughtful writing on the issue of Aboriginal title in British Columbia since the BC Supreme Court ruled on the Cowichan Tribes’ Aboriginal title interest in a number of fee simple properties along the Fraser River last summer.

That ruling prompted Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie to engage in an act of blatant fear-mongering over the future of private property rights and set off a whole chunk of misinformed British Columbians and others who now believe that private property rights are dead in BC.

It’s hard to know how many people actually believe that assertion to be true as the debate has been fuelled by the same opportunists that cruise channels like Facebook making shit up and getting everyone riled up for partisan political gain. The politics of the situation, as they often do, run faster and in a million more imaginary directions than the legalities of the situation.

The result is that a perfectly reasonable legal question – how to reconcile a set of Constitutionally defined and protected rights – has become a political football, because once things become political truth doesn’t matter. The populists are loving this because it feeds their “drive-by shouting” strategy of stoking outrage and moving on.

So I thought it might be time for us to catch a breath. I’ll share a few links that might help illuminate this conversation for those that truly care about the issue and aren’t running around dodging pieces of the sky. These aren’t beginner links. If you want to dive deep into the nature of Aboriginal title and the Canadian Constitution, you can easily search these terms to get a basic grounding.

What I’m most interested in is the commentary that is thoughtful about the current situation in BC. I share these because I have seen normally thoughtful people losing their minds over these issues without understanding what is actually on the table here or without appreciating how much the muck raking and mischief making has made this issue one in which the reality of what the Cowichan are asking for has been lost.

These links are in no particular order and many of them will take you to some of the sources of bad information and poorly informed opinion that are driving some people’s panic.

• Geoff Meggs discussing the sudden silence from the BC Business sector around this issue.
• Khelsilem’s take on what the Cowichan decision actually says and what it doesn’t. Here’s a good interview he did with the local CBC morning show.
• A good CBC article on the threads of speculation and the effect that Brodie’s irresponsible letter created.
• Also from CBC a useful backgrounder on Aboriginal title and this case specifically.
• My own thoughts on how this issue should steer our attention back to what reconciliation actually is.
• A long discussion from a Union of BC Municipalities panel that discusses different interpretations of the decision with respect to local government issues. I appreciated the diversity of opinion in this and the fact that it’s the only conversation I have seen on this where everyone is reasonably discussing the facts of the case.
• A Policy Options piece that discusses the ruling in the context of the established law on Aboriginal title.
• An excellent and I think easy to understand legal explanation of the case itself.

Regular readers will know that I know enough about this field to know what I’m looking at with respect to Aboriginal title. Since 1997 I have spent time working in the NC Treaty process and with organizations like the BC Assembly of First Nations discussing Aboriginal title and its implications. That said, I am not a lawyer, and if you want a proper analysis you should find someone that can give you one. feel free to share these links.

I’ll update this post as new information comes in.