FLETCHER: Reopening BC treaties adds to property rights crisis

Tom Fletcher has covered BC politics and business as a journalist since 1984.VICTORIA – When I first told Western Standard readers in April that the federal government had put historic Hatley Castle and the surrounding oceanside park on the table in treaty negotiations, there wasn’t much reaction.Modern treaty talks have gone on here for more than 30 years with only occasional progress. In the David Eby era, things have accelerated rapidly on a number of fronts, awakening BC residents to an unfolding crisis with court decisions and closed-door land deals adding to the vast implications of dozens of new treaties.This summer, Hatley Park has become a flashpoint. Its 560 acres of oceanfront, forest, and buildings are Department of National Defence property, home of Royal Roads University as well as the estate of former Lieutenant Governor James Dunsmuir.Hatley Park isn’t the only valuable land on the table in talks with the Te’mexw group, five southern Vancouver Island First Nations that already have historic treaties. A waterfront parking lot on Victoria’s Inner Harbour is also on the table, as well as another large lot just west of the BC legislature that provides one of the last parking areas for BC’s ever-growing public service.There are several jarring things about this deal. First, the Songhees Nation and other South Island groups are already covered by the historic Douglas treaties, which ceded the lands to the Crown except for agreed-to reserves between 1850 and 1854.The NDP approach to the Douglas Treaties is essentially to ignore them. The Royal BC Museum, where the original documents are housed, greets visitors with a sign that falsely states that the museum is on unceded land. The local newspaper recently ran a letter from someone asserting that the Douglas Treaties were forgeries..Another local resident wrote in to clarify that in those days, Governor James Douglas was required to send treaties back to London by sailing ship for sign-off, then complete the documents by recording the ‘X’ of each chief who agreed to them. Subsequent events have shown them to be valid.I was present in 2006 when the Songhees settled a court challenge to the land on which the legislature itself sits. Lawyers for the Songhees produced a map that showed the legislature site was originally part of a Douglas treaty reserve, and a later map altered to remove it and allow construction of the provincial parliament buildings.The case was settled with the blessing of then-Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice, and the Songhees were paid $30 million for the legislature land.Second, the lands would be exempt from provincial and local laws. With prime downtown real estate available, Victoria’s stately Empress Hotel and heritage-protected Old Town could soon be joined by a cluster of 20-storey waterfront high-rises.We’re seeing this take shape in downtown Vancouver, where the Squamish Nation is building a closely packed group of high-rises on land that was awarded in a court decision as a historical fishing village near the Burrard Street bridge.Density, green space, and other rules don’t apply to what is proposed to be 11 rental towers with heights up to 58 storeys. As federal reserve land, it is controlled by the Squamish Nation, with priority for Squamish members to occupy the units..Third, this proposed settlement upends the tradition of treaties in BC, where the federal government provides the money, and the province contributes Crown land. Hatley Park is federal land. A lawyer for the Te’mexw group has suggested that Royal Roads University could buy back the land, rather than close its doors and vacate the property.The NDP government has also crossed this historic jurisdictional line. Building reserve housing is the responsibility of the federal government, which now has two indigenous ministries. But a few years ago, the province started funding its own on-reserve housing projects, deciding that the job wasn’t getting done quickly enough by Ottawa.Finally, the proposed treaties themselves are not final. The NDP government has moved to a sort of “me-too” clause like those of union contracts, where treaty holders are eligible for new gains made in another treaty that comes later.Certainty and finality were the key purposes of treaties, implemented in Canada by King George III’s Royal Proclamation of 1763 when defeated France surrendered its North American territory to Britain in the Treaty of Paris.All that history is now treated as optional by the Eby government and Mark Carney’s Liberals in Ottawa.Tom Fletcher has covered BC politics and business as a journalist since 1984.tomfletcherbc@gmail.comX: @tomfletcherbc

FLETCHER: Reopening BC treaties adds to property rights crisis

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