Who really owns the land?
A CBC producer who bought a condo in Mile End became interested in the question of what it means to own a piece of unceded native land, and looked into the murky past of two cultures which have irreconcilable ideas about ownership of land.
Ant6n 03:54 on 2021-05-04 Permalink
Very interesting. I wish they’d looked more into what exactly the First Nations people want as part of this reconciliation process.
I also wonder, if there was never colonization, and the first nations were allowed to develop alongside other world cultures, whether they would have a different view of ownership right now. Can a community sense of land scale from thousands of ppl on the island to millions?
mare 10:59 on 2021-05-04 Permalink
Maybe all land ownership should be changed to emphyteutic leases with the First Nations and land owners would either pay a yearly fee, or buy it off for chunks of 50 or 100 years. Amsterdam is like that, even multi-million dollar houses stand on land the owners don’t own, but lease from the city.
I don’t think this would ever happen in Canada/Quebec. This would kill land speculation, a major form of wealth acquisition for companies, especially after areas see changes in zoning or increased transport options (for example the REM).
Implementing it as a small add-on property tax would be a less unlikely option, and even if it was very small, say a cent per square meter, the First Nations would get a big chunk of money that could change their lives if it was used for say education and infrastructure improvements (like water and telecommunications in Northern areas).
Just the city of Montreal is 430 million square meters; a cent per square meter* would yield $43 million per year, and would increase the property tax of a house or condo with maybe $10 to $100, the latter for a single family house on a very large plot, already taxes with many thousands in yearly property taxes.
I’d gladly pay that for a very partial reparation (a term which doesn’t sound nearly as good as the German Wiedergutmachung). Even though my ancestors never lived here, it feels like a morally right thing to do.
(One can dream…)
*of cours different rates for land that is used for commercial real estate or agriculture, and maybe it should be a small percentage added to existing property taxes, like our current water tax.
Meezly 17:36 on 2021-05-04 Permalink
Thanks so much for sharing that.