Canadian Court: Your House Might Belong to ‘Natives’ Now

Richmond, British Columbia’s mayor sparked alarm yesterday by hand-delivering letters (thanks to the Canada Post strike) to hundreds of property owners that a recent B.C. Supreme Court ruling “may compromise the status and validity of your ownership.” This court decision, if upheld, could ripple across Canada, undermining basic property ownership, a pillar of free society.

• In August, justice Barbara Young ruled that land titles granted by the government on nearly 3 square miles of developed land, including private homes and industrial sites, were invalid and “unjustifiably infringed the Cowichan’s Aboriginal title.” The Cowichan Tribes is an “indigenous” group of about 5,000 people.
• Private deeds, though still valid for now, must be resolved by talks, lawsuits, buyouts or coming under the control of tribal governments. The court even suggested “dual ownership.” Families in homes they thought they owned are in limbo over evictions, loans and home sales.

Everyone has appealed: locals and the government because they find the ruling insane; the Cowichan Indians because they want yet more land; and another Indian tribe, the Musqueam Nation, because they also fished a river in the area hundreds of years ago and insist the land is theirs.

This is a spectacular example of wokeness gone wild. For this court to invalidate property rights—thus destabilizing the economy and unraveling the social order—to satisfy claims from over a century and a half ago reflects an appalling lack of judgment.

God prophesied the removal of “the judge” from modern-day Israel and of judgment being turned away backward, justice standing afar off, and truth stumbling in the streets (Isaiah 3:2; 59:14)—curses for exiling God from our public life and rejecting His Word.