We see the unescapable end game of this “land acknowledgement” business playing out in British Columbia (BC), Canada. From the UK Daily Mail,
Hardworking farmer on verge of losing $1.6m home and business of 51 years after woke judge gave land to native tribe.
You read that correctly. Back in August, the provincial Supreme Court of BC awarded 800 acres within the Vancouver suburb of Richmond to a local native tribe.
The British Columbia Supreme Court in August awarded the Cowichan Tribes an Aboriginal title over roughly 800 acres of land in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond.
The ruling further declared that private ownership by the federal government and city of Richmond would be ‘defective and invalid.’
That’s problem No. 1. Problem No. 2 is that no one ever bothered to tell the affected individual homeowners at any point during the eleven (11) years that the case was grinding through the courts.
The practical impact? The homeowner’s bank is refusing to extend his mortgage with the property’s title suddenly in doubt.
O Canada! Our home and native land!
The tribe, in suing to regain their “lost” land, has not thought through the practical implications of the matter. The Daily Mail reports,
The tribes wanted to have ownership of the land returned to them, but did not seek for titles of privately held properties to be declared invalid.
The first statement above is completely unreconcilable with the second statement, above. This fact is reflected in the next sentence in the Daily Mail article,
The BC Supreme Court, however, ruled in August 2025 decision that granting private property ownership rights would ‘unjustifiably infringe’ on Cowichan Aboriginal title.
Just so. The premise behind the land acknowledgment craze is that everything that’s happened since 1492 was a ghastly error that must be completely reversed. All arrangements must be returned to the status quo ante of 1491. Call it “The 1491 Project.”
Since that fateful date, western civilization in the misnamed “New World” sits on land stolen from the “rightful” aboriginal owners. The true owners were those in place as of 1491, notwithstanding the events occurring in the prior 21,000 years.
The immediate conflict comes in reconciling that goal with the system of property rights within the English-speaking world dating back at least 800 years, to Magna Carta (1215).
Extending this logic, all of the “settlers” and their descendants must return to their aboriginal lands so that the aboriginal peoples of what is misnamed as North America can re-occupy their rightful property.
Take, as an example, my own complicated lineage. It turns out that my ancesters came from across Europe. Unfortunately for me, lands my ancestors had occupied in Germany, France, and Wales are now the property of the newcomers, which have fled to Europe in recent years seeking “asylum.”
It turns out that in Europe, the property claims of the newcomers outrank the property claims of the native inhabitants, and far outweigh any claims made by the diaspora of the aboriginal Celtic and Germanic peoples of western Europe and the British Isles.
My only recourse would then be a “return” to Poland, a nation I have never visited where they speak a language I do not know. Again, unfortunately for me, the “Poland” my ancestors left occupied a land several hundred miles east of the nation’s current location.
Of course, at the time my ancestors left, “Poland” was controlled by the Russian Empire. So, should I “return” to Russia? Or should I go all the way back to the Eurasian Steppe, the land from which my most distant ancestor’s likely emerged?
I’m easy, just let me know where.
