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Vaughn Palmer: B.C. farm sales hurt by Aboriginal title questions, MLA charges

Opinion: The growing uncertainty about the impact of Aboriginal rights and title on private property and tenures has hit ranching country

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VICTORIA — It was billed as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own prime ranch land” when 12 B.C. ranches totalling 182 square kilometres were put up for sale late last year.

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Yet when the deadline for initial offers to Monette Farms passed in January, there were no takers.

Vaughn Palmer: B.C. farm sales hurt by Aboriginal title questions, MLA charges Back to video

The lack of sales was blamed on growing uncertainty about the impact of Aboriginal rights and title on private property and tenures in ranching country and elsewhere in B.C.

Details were reported in this month’s issue of Country Life in B.C., the longtime news source of the agriculture sector.

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“Title concerns add uncertainty to land deals,” was the headline on the story by Riley Donovan. But the sub-head noted “strong interest reported as auction deadline extends.”

The latter prospect was attributed to overseer Ritchie Bros., suggesting better prospects   in a second, “tender-by-auction” round closing this month.

“Ritchie Bros. does not typically comment on specific bid activity or negotiations during an active sales process,” company representative Clare Furman told Country Life. “That said, we’ve had a lot of interest in the properties thus far.”

The story went on to note how one ranch deal had already fallen through.

“Local Indigenous groups told the prospective buyer, whose offer on the property had been accepted, that they would not endorse the transfer of the Crown licences” — such as grazing leases on provincial land — “needed to support the ranching operation.”

The faltering ranchland sales spilled over into question period in the legislature on Tuesday, with Conservative MLA Lorne Doerkson pressuring the New Democrats over the report in Country Life.

“Monette Farms is trying to sell 12 ranch properties across British Columbia, but land ownership uncertainty from the Cowichan (Tribes case in Richmond) has scared off willing buyers,” charged Doerkson.

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What was the government doing to protect private property ownership in the province, the MLA asked.

Responding was Premier David Eby. He’s repeatedly criticized the Cowichan decision by the B.C. Supreme Court and blamed it for increasing public anxieties over the status of private property.

But on Tuesday he chose to lash out at Doerkson.

“Isn’t that the member for Cariboo-Chilcotin, the community where there was a court decision under the previous government,” challenged Eby.

He referred to the 2014 Supreme Court of Canada decision which recognized Tŝilhqot’in Aboriginal title over a sizable tract of the Chilcotin region.

“A transformative decision that created incredible uncertainty in the centre of the province, because the government at the time refused to sit down with the Tŝilhqot’in and try to find a path forward,” said the premier.

“The member decries the chaos, but wouldn’t it have been nice had the government at the time sat down to try to avoid court and find a path forward?” Eby continued. “They chose not to.”

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The failure to placate the Tŝilhqot’in and head off the court decision is shared among the previous B.C. Liberal, Social Credit and NDP administrations. The case was escalated to a claim of Aboriginal title under the 1990s NDP government.

Doerkson pushed back with some history of his own. The New Democrats had nine years to resolve whatever Tŝilhqot’in-related uncertainties they inherited from previous administrations.

“For nine years in this chamber, we have asked questions about how to move forward for private landowners in that territory,” he recalled. “There has been no clarity around that from this government.

“We’ve heard one ranch deal has already collapsed and has fallen through because of this nonsense.”

The New Democrats continue to say that private property will change hands in Indigenous agreements only on a basis of “willing seller, willing buyer,” said Doerkson.

But in the case of those ranch sales, “their inaction has scared off the willing buyers.”

Eby pressed on, in keeping with his insistence that the Conservatives have to say where they stand on the NDP-government led reconciliation agenda.

“You’re either on the team or you’re not,” as the premier said one day last week. “I’m on the team, and I’m focused on what we need to be focused on.”

He also blames the Conservatives for inflaming the issue with “misinformation” about private property being at risk under claims of Aboriginal title.

Yet it was Eby himself who made some of the strongest comments in that regard after the Cowichan decision.

“The anxiety among people who are affected by this decision is totally reasonable,” he said in defending Richmond’s decision to call a town-hall meeting on the fallout.

“These are profound issues that are hard to consider in the absence of the real people — the homeowners, the business owners who will be affected by this decision,” he said announcing the NDP determination to appeal the case. “I want the court to look into (their) eyes, metaphorically speaking.”

But there was none of that talk Tuesday, as Eby targeted the Conservatives over their reading of the impact of the court’s finding of Aboriginal title.

This on a day when an opinion poll reported the Conservatives eight points ahead, suggesting they were doing a better job than the NDP of representing the “real” people affected by the Cowichan decision.

vpalmer@postmedia.com 

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