Kamloops case exposes hidden financial risk for BC landowners - "A Kamloops landowner has learned an expensive lesson that most British Columbians don’t even know exists: if you dig on your own property and uncover Indigenous remains, you could be on the hook for six-figure costs, with no help from the government and no clear way out. Their experience should serve as a warning to anyone who assumes private property still means what it used to in the province. In the Kamloops case, in just seven months, the discovery has triggered more than $100,000 in legal and archeological costs on an empty parcel of land assessed at $440,000. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc have demanded more than $80,000 in additional fees, including 24-hour security provided by them at roughly double the normal rate. At the same time, the property has been declared an untouchable “sacred site” locked behind layers of provincial red tape and bureaucratic delay—all while duelling archeological reports suggest the two skulls in question may not have originated on the property at all, but were dumped there many years ago as imported fill under a previous owner. It is, for many, a nightmare scenario. Start a small project in your backyard, only to hit an ancient object or bone that predates you by hundreds of years but nonetheless puts you on the hook legally for a mountain of costs, without help from any level of government. “It shows there’s a lot of vulnerability in private property ownership at the moment, with really a limited access at this point to full disclosure and information about what’s happening,” said Independent Surrey-Cloverdale MLA Elenore Sturko, who has been trying to help the property owner... The property owner found two skulls on June 13 while landscaping a relatively small empty lot to act as a community garden for seniors at a neighbouring seniors home. The RCMP and coroner were notified, who told the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc nation, which by the end of that same day had registered the land as an archeological site and issued a press release about the “ancestral remains” on the property “now considered a sacred site” in part under the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. Soon, the bills started arriving, everything from the cost of a smudging ceremony, to digging equipment, to the requirement of 24-7 “culturally sensitive” security from the nation (at twice the cost of a normal security rate), said Christine Elliott, a lawyer hired by the property owner to handle the details. No one from the city, province or federal government offered to help pay anything. “My calculation at the time was, ‘Oh my god, we will have soaked through 100 per cent of the value of the land in one year,’” said Elliott. The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc were able to get a “site alteration permit” to exhume the remains from the B.C. government’s Archeological Brand within 24 hours of applying in August. But that same office took more than two and a half months to respond to questions from the landowner, said Elliott. The owner hired their own private archeological firm to assess the land. Gordon Mohs, who has 40 years of archeological experience in the Secwepemc territory, concluded the skulls were part of a sand layer covering two-thirds of the site that had been imported as fill some years prior... The owner allowed the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc to access the site to exhume the remains in October. But they refused to pay any of the nation’s fees. A short time later, an unknown party made a complaint to the Heritage Conservation Branch that the site had been tampered with. The owner and Mohs now find themselves under investigation by a government Natural Resources officer. They insist they did nothing to the site, other than Mohs’ professional assessment. It has been locked and under watch of a security guard since the discovery... the property sits under a cloud of incredible confusion—the nation has declared inherent title as well as cultural site status, and it has also claimed a buffer zone around the property that impacts adjacent lots. The area is now registered as an official archeological site with the province, even though the remains are gone. The land’s sale value is questionable, at best. Any development would first require inspection permits, archaeological impact assessments and other bureaucratic hurdles from the B.C. government, all paid for out of the private landowner’s pocket... it’s another example of how the NDP government’s reconciliation framework, particularly under DRIPA, has quietly reshaped property rights in B.C. without clear rules about who pays when those worlds collide. It builds upon last year’s Cowichan Nation court ruling that Aboriginal title is superior to private property rights, and the Court of Appeal ruling last year that DRIPA can be used to strike down provincial laws. Premier David Eby has said he’s preparing amendments to protect private property rights, but it’s not clear if any of that will address the immense costs that face private landowners who stumble across ancient archeological finds. The B.C. government does maintain a database of heritage sites on private land, called the Remote Access to Archeological Data (RAAD), but it is only accessible to First Nations and registered archeologists. The general public can’t access it, for fear from the province that they might loot those sites for valuable artifacts. Buyers and sellers have to assume enormous liability for risks they can’t discover in advance... Allowing the current situation to stand, where private owners foot enormous bills for historical remains they were unaware of and had nothing to do with, could eventually cause people to destroy or hide any remains they find in order to avoid the burden, said Sturko. “This government is so super-secret all the time, and constantly doing stuff out of the public view, most people don’t even know it’s a thing,” she said. In the meantime, the Kamloops land remains in limbo. Elliott said she has included Eby and Forests Minister Ravi Parmar in some of her letters objecting to the process. Neither has responded. “We sympathize with the property owner as this is a complex case,” the Ministry of Forests said in a statement. Not really, though. The message from the NDP government is clear: If you are unlucky enough to uncover history on your own land, you alone will pay the price for it."
This was a garden for seniors too, but too bad, "indigenous" people are more important
B.C. laws leave landowners alone with costly discoveries of Indigenous remains : r/ilovebc - "Don't report what you find. Problem solved"
This Land Is Not Your Land - "Tom Isaac, a well-known expert in indigenous law who advises businesses and governments, said that the judge’s ruling “erased 99 percent of the words” on property titles held by the current owners in the black zone. “It makes us the only jurisdiction in the Western Hemisphere where a supposedly guaranteed and indefeasible land title is defeasible.” He added, “If that isn’t radical, if that isn’t shocking, I don’t know what else is.” Nothing like this has ever happened in Canada. Because of the judge’s ruling, all those land acknowledgments that are only half-listened-to at school assemblies and hockey games actually have extremely complicated consequences, at least in British Columbia—and perhaps all across the country someday. “I never really gave land acknowledgments much thought, but now I do,” Batth told me. The seeds of the court’s ruling were sown decades ago. Canada gave indigenous property rights constitutional protection in 1982 under Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, while other property rights have no such protection. In 2014, a Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Tsilhqot’in Nation in British Columbia made it much easier for indigenous groups to claim ownership of land they have lived on or used. The next year, Trudeau’s son, Justin, swept into power as prime minister, promising a new relationship between the government and indigenous people in Canada, who make up about 5 percent of the country’s population. That promise included implementing all 94 “calls to action” issued by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, including making it easier for indigenous groups to claim Aboriginal title and resolve disputes about land rights... In 2021, Trudeau’s government created Truth and Reconciliation Day, a national day of remembrance intended to honor survivors of the residential school system. That year, Trudeau kept the Canadian flag at half-mast for more than five months after the reported discovery of unmarked graves in the apple orchard at a former school. No human remains have actually been recovered. Many Canadians sleepwalked through every step, never imagining that they could lead to a court ruling that literally shifts the legal ground beneath them. Now, land acknowledgments and broader settler-colonist narratives are starting to encounter more skepticism, at least on the political right... When Great Britain declared sovereignty over British Columbia in 1846, it never signed treaties with the Cowichan in this region, and so the Cowichan never surrendered their land rights. (That is what “unceded” means in those land acknowledgments.) But that didn’t stop governments from handing parcels of land to settlers, municipalities, and federal agencies anyway, which built a new property system right on top of the old one. Almost all of British Columbia is like this. Ninety-five percent is unceded territory, and there are over 200 indigenous groups in the province... “By reaching back to what the Cowichan were doing on the land in 1846, the judge essentially used a 19th-century snapshot to rewrite 21st-century property rights,” said Isaac, the lawyer. The ruling triggered the most “profound political and legal reckoning” of his career, he added. Many of the people he speaks to are wondering if Canada’s approach to land rights and reconciliation is sustainable at all. David Rosenberg, senior litigation counsel for the Cowichan Nation, tried to assure me that the current owners have nothing to worry about—as long as they don’t try to build anything or get a renovation permit, or sell their land. If they do any of those things, Rosenberg said, then the government might have to consult with or even secure consent from the Cowichan Nation, because Aboriginal title now gives the Cowichan a constitutional say over what happens on that land. Dwight Newman, a law professor at the University of Saskatchewan who studies indigenous rights, said the idea that Aboriginal title and private property can “coexist,” as the judge put it in her ruling, doesn’t really make sense, because both are supposed to be “exclusive” forms of ownership. Each one claims the full right to control the land. “If you have two owners with exclusive rights, one of them will always have to give way. In practice, that means private homeowners will end up having to defer, at least in part, to Aboriginal title,” Newman told me. While the appeals drag on, “uncertainty around mortgage financing, land titles, and investment is likely to grow.”... “When you start playing around with private property, then the bigger piece is the entire economy itself,” said Isaac, who has represented indigenous groups and governments. The clash also presents a major obstacle to Canada’s economic strategy under Prime Minister Mark Carney to emphasize major energy and infrastructure projects. These huge projects will require stable partnerships between the government, private sector, and indigenous groups, yet Canadian courts are threatening to destabilize the definition of who owns the land... “How far do we go back? What date are we starting from?” asked Woitowitsch. “As far as I’m concerned, the whole world has been conquered. All the lines on the map were drawn and redrawn by people coming in and conquering.” He said angrily that he believes years of land acknowledgments, apologies, and symbolic gestures softened the ground for rulings like this... “It’s time for the aboriginals to get with the freaking program. It’s 2025. Why don’t they move into the future instead of going backward all the time?”... he is frustrated that the ruling gives one version of history far more legal weight than all the others. “We can’t just pick a date that suits our narrative and try to fix things because we like that era better,” Kevin Kutny said. Some indigenous groups don’t like the ruling, either. The Musqueam Nation said that it stomps on their land title and fishing rights because they lived in the area long before the Cowichan. The Tsawwassen First Nation claims that the ruling might undercut a treaty it signed with Canada and British Columbia in 2009."
Clearly, Tom Isaac and all the other experts quoted are ignorant because they don't know that the Cowichan saying they would respect private property means there's no threat to property rights
Tablesalt 🇨🇦🇺🇸 on X - "🚨NEW Canadian couple's building contractor finds indigenous grave and they get a bill for $300,000!! AND if there's more artifacts, they could be on the hook for over A MILLION DOLLARS! This is why no one invests in Canada!"
Canada has gone mad 🍎 on X - "The irony 🇨🇦... Homeowners slapped with a $319K bill (and counting) for a forced archaeological dig on their private property after unearthing Indigenous remains. Yet Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation (Kamloops band) got millions in funding but refuses to excavate. Make it make sense 😏"
Holly Doan on X - "Feds censor as "confidential" files on what Kamloops First Nation did with $12.1 million in funding to recover alleged Indian Residential School graves. @Tkemlups acknowledged Feb 18 it never exhumed remains. “The community received funding for field work.” — Carolane Gratton @GCIndigenous https://blacklocks.ca/alleged-graves -confidential/ @OIC_CI_Canada"
John Rustad on X - "Canadians were told there were 215 graves. The country lowered the national flag for months. Churches were burned. International headlines declared the discovery of mass graves at a former residential school. The federal government responded by allocating $12.1 million in taxpayer funding specifically to support investigation and exhumation work to verify those claims. Now we learn that no remains have been exhumed. At the same time, the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations has released the activity reports tied to that funding, but every meaningful detail has been redacted. The reports describing what work was carried out, what investigations were conducted, and how public money was spent have been blacked out and labelled confidential. That is unacceptable. When the federal government spends millions of your taxpayer dollars to investigate a claim that shook the entire country, Canadians have a right to transparency. They have a right to know what work was performed, what evidence was found, and how their money was used. This is not about denying history. It is not about attacking Indigenous communities. It is about basic public accountability. If the government funded an investigation, the public deserves to see the results of that investigation. Let me be clear : The records should be released in full. The spending should be explained clearly. Canadians deserve the truth about what was done with their money. And if that money was not spent for the purpose it was granted for, then the public deserves accountability, including repayment of those funds. #cdnpoli #bcpoli"
Ottawa ordered to release Kamloops residential school records after breaching access law - "Ottawa has been ordered to begin disclosing long-withheld records tied to the Kamloops residential school grave claims after the federal Crown-Indigenous Relations department was found to have violated access-to-information law by stonewalling requests for more than a year. Blacklock's Reporter says Information Commissioner Caroline Maynard ruled that the department led by Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Rebecca Alty unlawfully delayed and improperly attempted to seal documents related to the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation’s 2021 announcement of 215 purported graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School... The Kamloops First Nation announced in May 2021 that ground-penetrating radar had detected what it said were 215 graves in an orchard near the former school. No skeletal remains have been excavated or recovered. Despite that, the First Nation received $12.1 million in federal funding earmarked for the “exhumation of remains” and forensic DNA testing. As a condition of that funding, the First Nation was required to submit regular Activity Progress Reports to the federal government. On December 15, Alty’s department attempted to block release of all such reports sought by Blacklock’s Reporter, arguing they were confidential. A second Blacklock’s request remains active, seeking all Activity Progress Reports connected to the Tk’emlups Indian Residential School Survivor Project or any related “missing children” program funded by the department. "
What could they possibly have to hide?
Kamloops residential school search for potential unmarked graves rules out some areas: First Nation : r/canada - "Said this when the story broke; and got downvoted to hell: the initial searches were done using ground penetrating radar (GPR) which is super inaccurate. I use GPR as part of my job. It’s very good for things like locating underground utilities under concrete slabs. But not good at detecting organic material. The FBI in the US did a study using pig carcasses and found that GPR was virtually useless in finding cadavers."
LSO approves mandatory Indigenous cultural training course for all licensees : r/LawCanada - "The BC course was boring, full of falsehoods, and useless to a practitioner. Apparently i'm a racist to ask a client about their culture. Nonsense. It even went into lefty shit like micro transactions. Now my bar fees have to pay to defend a lawsuit against the law society because the regulator sanctioned some idiots calling another idiot a racist because he wanted a couple false statements fixed."
Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - ""Stewards of the land " cutting down and selling the worlds oldest, irreplaceable trees and carbon sinks for a few bucks. Sounds about right."
Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "And no one will ever investigate this practice for fraud because we have spent the last 5 years reminding the police how racist they are."
Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "I can confirm this. Look at arial google maps southwest of Apex Ski hill. The Penticton and Similkameen bands own the claims and the logging contractors clear cut massive blocks each year through the nordic center, around the lake leaving nothing behind except enormous piles of fir debris and churned clay that runs off into the Villages water source. The Indian bands are supposed to consult with forestry and community stakeholders, but have not shown up for the meetings for 3 years now."
Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "Another person chiming in to say that, yeah… I can confirm. The We Wai Kai First Nation are absolutely obliterating the beautiful Prince of Wales range. It’s by far some of the best hiking on the island (in my opinion - reminds me a bit of Howe Sound but the peaks are a bit gnarly so not sure about the ability to do a full traverse like the HSCT). They are taking almost every last bit of the old growth in there over the next several years. It’s high elevation stuff that just won’t grow back like it once did maybe ever given the shift in climate (less snowpack especially). If you don’t want to support this type of unsustainable logging, I’d avoid swinging by Quinsam Plaza off the island highway. I believe they own every business there."
The Stewards of the Land are at it again
Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "Stewards if the land amirite? Yes, essentially guilty white morons are just coming to the realization that these people's want money too. You wanna see an entire town booked up with high end cars filling hotel parking? Find out where the BC first nations baseball tournament is held. I was in PG for work and I could get a hotel room so I slept in my car. I worked in FSJ and called some buds i was working with "indians." I apologized and said "sorry first nations" I was told "fuck you we're indians. First nations is vancouver white people shit" I was gobsmacked, I the incredulous looks I get from my friends in van is even more gobsmacking"
Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "The fishery also works that way"
"And Hunting. Natives across canada sell services to get you a trophy big game animal at ANY TIME OF YEAR regardless of it what point the animal is in the season. Doesn't matter if fhe Animal is a mother with her young, money is money and they will get you your mount and meat."
Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "Old high school friend owns a solar installation company. He created a second company which is a partnership with a First Nation. On projects which can only be built by First Nations or they get a better deal or better shot at winning he bids with the second company. It’s the same company except that one shares five percent of the profits with the partnered First Nation"
"I have seen many deals that are 5-10% of gross revenue with the indigenous partner being silent. It's basically like paying the mob for your license to do business in their neighborhood."
Fairy Creek Protester turns on indigenous logging practices : r/ilovebc - "I am a heavy civil construction estimator for a company that does 90% provincial government projects. Our bids are evaluated and selected via a point system for a total of 120 points. 55 of those points are related to Indigenous engagment on the project. We know that our bids are always super close to our competitors in price, so basically native engagement points gets you the project award or not. The result has been the creation of super shady industry practices to win bids, such as setting up shell companies in the name of one indigenous owner for "consultation". Or straight up bribing indigenous companies to only go in on the bid with your company."
PM didn't meet 'coastal First Nations,' he met a group with that name - "Prime Minister Mark Carney flew to B.C. for a meeting with “Coastal First Nations,” crediting them as ancient guardians of the Pacific Coast. “Coastal First Nations have stewarded the waters of the B.C. North Coast from time immemorial,” he wrote in a statement. But Carney didn’t meet with a governing body representing the more than 100 First Nations on the B.C. coast. In fact, he didn’t meet with an Indigenous governing body of any kind. Carney met with an anti-pipeline non-profit that has done business under the name “Coastal First Nations” since 2002. Prior to that, it was called Turning Point, and operated out of the offices of the David Suzuki Foundation. In fact, the group’s last major event before meeting Carney was a gala to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Coastal First Nations isn’t even the name on its registration documents. If Carney had used their official moniker, his statement would have read, “The Great Bear Initiative Society has stewarded the waters of the B.C. North Coast from time immemorial.” Coastal First Nations describes itself as “an alliance of First Nations on the North Pacific Coast,” and counts representatives from eight of those nations on its board of directors. But the B.C. coast is home to one of the densest collections of First Nations governments in the entire country. Of the 600 officially recognized First Nations bands in Canada, more than a tenth of them are located on the edges of the Pacific Ocean. According to a map of First Nations communities compiled by the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, there are 72 First Nations whose reserve land is on the coast. But Coastal First Nations has ties to just eight of those communities, representing a total of 11,236 members as of the last count by the B.C. government. For context, in the last census, B.C. had 290,210 Indigenous people, of whom 180,085 identified as First Nations. In short, Coastal First Nations is endorsed by just 10 per cent of the First Nations bands who could accurately call themselves Coastal First Nations. And at best, they represent just 6.2 per cent of the province’s total First Nations population. In fact, if you took the two largest First Nations in B.C. — Squamish and Cowichan Tribes — you would get about as many members as the eight groups that represent themselves as “Coastal First Nations.” Neither Squamish or Cowichan Tribes have anything to do with Coastal First Nations, although they are First Nations on the coast with a combined official membership of 10,294 (Cowichan Tribes 5,528, Squamish 4,766). By contrast, the smallest community among the eight that endorse Coastal First Nations is the Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation. According to Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, their total registered population is 489, half of whom live off-reserve. And Coastal First Nations was never intended to be a generalized agent for Indigenous interests. It was very explicitly founded as an environmentalist group. This is something that Coastal First Nations freely admits... Coastal First Nation’s hardline opposition to oil and gas has previously lost them endorsements from First Nations along the coast. In 2012, Coastal First Nations publicly broke with the Haisla First Nation, one of its founding members, over the issue of LNG... Coastal First Nations’ anti-pipeline bona fides also explains some of the group’s funding sources. One of its seed funders was the San Francisco-based Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, a serial funder of anti-tanker and anti-pipeline initiatives in Canada. If Carney had been looking for a group that was more representative of First Nations on the B.C. coast, he could have met with the B.C. Assembly of First Nations. They actually do purport to be a comprehensive regional representative for First Nations interests; their regional chief is elected by all 204 B.C. First Nations. And this is probably why their position on pipelines is a bit more nuanced than Coastal First Nations."
Fishing advocacy groups sound alarm: DFO "Removing the principle of common property would shift public access to fishing from a federal, conservation-based management approach to an optional privilege granted by First Nations." : r/ilovebc - "will they allow people to breathe their air?"
Adam Stirling 11am-3pm Weekdays on X - "Wow. Heredity Chief of Tsawout First Nation calls for removal of parking lots from Goldstream Provincial Park as well as more restrictions on walking trails after large tree falls due to compromised root systems. Hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life visit the park yearly. For now… #bcpoli"
Harman Bhangu on X - "Let me get this straight. A storm knocks down a tree in Goldstream. Now the call is to remove parking lots, restrict trails, and limit access to a provincial park used by hundreds of thousands of families every year. This is how it starts! DRIPA gives the framework for this thinking, vague authority, endless restrictions, and no accountability. Decisions driven by ideology, not balance, where public land quietly becomes less public. British Columbians see it, and they’re fed up."
