The ruling by the British Columbia Supreme Court in the

Cowichan Tribes case

earlier this month highlights just how many legal rules on constitutionally protected Aboriginal title remain unresolved and how much of a problem those legal gaps create.

One of the issues getting the most media play, that of the interaction between Aboriginal title claims and privately owned lands, is one where the judgment seems to have implications but doesn’t quite come out and say anything clear — a complex conclusion I’ve been discussing in my

Law for Breakfast Substack

. The judgment says that Aboriginal title takes priority over fee simple (the form of landholding of private landowners) but that it’s not going to make a specific declaration about any privately owned land. If you’re confused, join the club.

While the Cowichan ruling is being appealed by the British Columbia government because of the major uncertainties it has created for the province’s land ownership system, the appeals process could take years and might still not offer clarity.

Let’s back up a bit to understand the broader context of this sort of uncertainty. In 2014, in the

Tsilhqot’in case

, the Supreme Court of Canada issued the first-ever judicial declaration of Aboriginal title to a specific tract of land in Canada. At the time, some lawyers, myself included, warned that the judgment had left dozens of important legal issues about the rules on Aboriginal title unresolved and without meaningful legal guidance.

One of the issues I raised at that time in a

report

for the Fraser Institute, “The Top Ten Uncertainties of Aboriginal Title After Tsilhqot’in,” was the potential implications of Aboriginal title for privately owned land.

This issue has percolated over the years. In their case, the Tsilhqot’in Nation deliberately avoided raising it by excluding small areas of private ranchland from their claim area in a remote region of British Columbia.

In the Cowichan case, the Cowichan claimants similarly asked not to have a full judicial declaration against any privately owned lands in urban Richmond, but they did seek and get a declaration against lands owned by the City of Richmond in fee simple (again, the same form of land ownership that private landowners have).

So, there is a gradual move toward Aboriginal title having implications for private landowners, even while everyone has plausible deniability at each specific step.

In principle, there has been no specific legal conclusion on that point because private landowners might be able to use certain defences in court that weren’t available to their public counterparts.

One of these defences, that of being a “bona fide purchaser for value,” can result in court protections for people who bought land innocently and paid for it. Technically, this didn’t apply to the City of Richmond.

So, maybe that defence will apply to someone else worrying that their land is affected. Or maybe it won’t. Wait and see some years from now if you still own your land. And if you need to sell it before then, see if the buyer offers a different price because of the shadow of uncertainty over it. But don’t worry, because this is all just the way the law in this area develops — slowly and with nobody ready to take accountability and make some big, definitive decisions.

Is there any way out of these shadowlands of legal uncertainty? Yes. There are a few options. One that is particularly promising is through something known as the reference power: provincial and federal governments have the power to send pure legal questions to the courts to get decisions directly on the questions they send. The federal government can send questions directly to the Supreme Court of Canada, or provinces can send questions to their courts of appeal and then appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada for final resolution.

It may be time to think about using that power and sending some of the unresolved legal questions on Aboriginal title to the courts to get their views. If they give answers that are workable — that try to respect interests on all sides and that come to answers everyone can live with — then the uncertainties are resolved.

If something else comes back, then at least we know that’s what we’re getting. Governments and citizens can then consider various options, including even the possibility of constitutional amendments, while having information rather than just operating in the dark.

My proposed solution may seem to rely on judicial power and judicial wisdom more than some find comfortable on issues where they may have doubts on various things courts have done over the years. But I envision governments being very ready to engage in “dialogue” with the answers, as the popular metaphor goes. And if someone wants to propose an option that doesn’t use this path through the courts, let’s get that option out there, too. What isn’t an option is to just drift along as if uncertainty is fine.

We cannot just go on with endless legal questions working their way through the courts for decades on doctrines that profoundly affect the lives of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. We especially can’t do this for something like land ownership, where mere whiffs of uncertainty are outright economically damaging in ways that are harmful to everyone. Let’s use this moment of concern and attention to Aboriginal title issues to get to some clarity.

National Post

Dwight Newman, KC, is a professor of law and the Canada Research Chair in Rights, Communities and Constitutional Law at the University of Saskatchewan.

Canadian physician Gordon Guyatt coined the term “evidence-based medicine.” According to the

Canadian Medical Hall of Fame

, into which he was inducted in 2016, he is one of our country’s “most cited researchers” and “is considered a world authority in the fields of health-related quality of life research, study design, systematic reviews and guideline development.”

His work led to the development of the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (

GRADE

) tool, which allows researchers to determine the quality of a body of evidence. Guyatt is an impressive man. (Perhaps “was” is now the correct verb to use.) He is not, however, immune to the fear of being taken down by a righteous, anti-science mob of gender activists.

This month, McMaster University, where Guyatt is

a professor

in research methods and evidence, published

a letter

about recent “systematic reviews related to gender-affirming care.”

According to the university, the letter was written after “members and allies of 2SLGBTQIA+ communities … raised concerns about recent systematic reviews related to gender-affirming care. These concerns centre on the funding source, and specifically on the potential for the research to be misused to harm trans youth and to deny gender-affirming care.” Yet the letter, which was signed by Guyatt and four others, is a total abdication of the principles of evidence-based medicine.

The authors acknowledged that “only low certainty evidence exists … regarding the benefits of the gender-affirming care interventions addressed in our systematic reviews.”

In GRADE terms, that means that the researchers’ “confidence in the effect estimate is limited: the true effect may be substantially different from the estimate of the effect.” In layman’s terms, the research Guyatt et al. published showed that the medical outcomes of childhood gender transitioning could be “substantially different” from what doctors have been telling youth, and parents, it would be.

But Guyatt and his colleagues now say they’re worried their findings “will be misused” to ” justify denying care such as puberty blockers and hormone replacement therapy” to trans youth.

While the university didn’t give any details about which “members and allies of 2SLGBTQIA+ communities” complained, the letter appears to be a response to another — a

letter to the editor

published in the British Medical Journal, in which one angry person accuses the prestigious journal of “enabling anti-gender ideology” by — wait for it — publishing research conducted by the

Society for Evidence Based Gender Medicine

(SEGM), given that the

Southern Poverty Law Center

accused it (outrageously and without merit) of being “an anti-LGBTQ+ hate group.”

This is standard stuff from the cancellation mob playbook: attack the person, not the idea, and insist upon guilt by association.

On its website,

SEGM describes itself

as “free from political, ideological, religious or financial influences,” and on a “mission to promote evidence-based care for gender-dysphoric children, adolescents and young adults that prioritizes long-term outcomes, is rooted in ethical principles and is based on fully informed consent.”

Guyatt, and McMaster University, previously published systematic reviews of gender medicine that were sponsored by SEGM, but say in the letter: “We acknowledge concerns that have been raised. Our research agreement with SEGM ended in 2024. When the agreement started in 2021, the organization appeared to us as non-trans, cis-gender researchers to be legitimately evidence-based.”

Guyatt and his colleagues at McMaster not only cut ties with SEGM, they paid an appropriate tithe — using their personal money — to an approved gender activist group. “We will no longer accept funding from SEGM. As recommended by community advocates, we have also personally made a donation to Egale Canada’s legal and justice work, noting their litigation efforts aimed at preventing the denial of medically necessary care for gender-diverse youth,” they wrote.

Thanks to both a growing body of evidence and the heroic outspokenness of detransitioned persons, the world is wising up to the not-uncommon negative outcomes of gender-affirming care. Particularly as it relates to youth. Rather than childhood transitioning being a cure-all for gender dysphoria, it has caused many to experience sterility, disfigurement, early-onset osteoporosis, permanent sexual dysfunction in adulthood, intense regret and more.

While the western world is

making an about-face

on the medical scandal that is pediatric gender transition, Canada — thanks to people like Guyatt — remains under the spell of radical gender ideologues whose sole remaining currency is intimidation. Do what we say, or we will ruin your reputation, too.

What Guyatt and his colleagues are essentially saying is this: forget about the low-quality evidence, and instead allow the “autonomy of patients and their advocates” to overrule the science. “The high respect for autonomy becomes particularly important when the certainty of the evidence is low or very low. In such circumstances, clinicians should work with patients to ensure that care reflects the experience, goals and priorities of those needing care — that is, their values and preferences,” they wrote.

The argument blatantly ignores the largest ethical issue in pediatric gender-affirming care: that minors are not capable of providing informed consent for this type of treatment, and their advocates (parents, usually) have been woefully misinformed about its benefits.

Parents have

been lied to

about pediatric gender transitioning being the only thing that can prevent their children from committing suicide. They’ve been lied to about the safety and permanent side effects of puberty blockers. And anyone with a modicum of reasoning faculties should understand that children and teens are not capable of “choosing” their gender, or deciding if they are OK with never having children.

“It is unconscionable to forbid clinicians from delivering gender-affirming care,” wrote Guyatt et al. No. It is unconscionable is to ignore the largest medical scandal of our era. It is unconscionable is to worry more about one’s immediate reputation, when confronted by angry gender activists, than one’s principles. Evidence-based medicine? Not at McMaster University.

National Post

• Amy Hamm: FBI completely justified in targeting ‘gender-affirming’ doctors
• Opinion: There is no medical consensus on child gender transition

For too many around the world, Israel’s war with Hamas is viewed through a lens of moral simplicity: Enough. End the fighting. Bring relief to the people of Gaza. Accept a ceasefire — any ceasefire. Do the “right” thing.

Forget that

50 hostages

remain in Gaza. Forget that Hamas vows to repeat October 7. Forget that this week

marks one year since six hostages were murdered in captivity

— killed in cold blood after yet another round of failed negotiations.

Israel is navigating a maze of impossible decisions with no clean exits, only devastating trade-offs. Consider the latest ceasefire proposal. After months of failed talks — and with Israel poised to capture Gaza City — Hamas now says it’s

open to a deal brokered by Egypt, Qatar, and the United States

. The terms: a 60-day pause in fighting, partial Israeli withdrawal, and the release of only half the surviving hostages.

Even if Hamas honours this deal — a naive assumption, given its history — the outcome would be perverse. Hamas would claim victory for surviving and outmaneuvering the Middle East’s strongest military. It would also leave many hostages starving and stranded, in the tunnels beneath Gaza.

Nevertheless, several Western governments, including Canada, have threatened to recognize a Palestinian state if Israel refuses the deal. Think about the absurdity of this: Israel is being told that unless it allows some of its citizens to remain underground, and unless it leaves a terrorist organization standing, it will be punished with a unilateral move that grants that very group global legitimacy.

What other Western democracy would accept such terms?

Hamas has been given numerous chances to end the war, and with it, the humanitarian disaster in Gaza. But it is singularly interested in survival — their survival, not that of those they claim to represent. Every proposal, every delay, every hostage still held is a bargaining chip to extract concessions, claim victory, and live to fight another day. But it is Israel which is pilloried for intransigence across the international community.

Critics insist Hamas cannot be defeated. But Hamas today is weaker, more isolated, and less capable than it was on October 6. The real question is not whether Hamas can be broken, but why the world is prepared to let it survive — likely guaranteeing yet another cycle of violence.

It is also worth recalling that Hamas is not only Israel’s problem. Arab states like Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Morocco have long regarded Hamas as a dangerous branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, backed by Iran, and a threat to their own stability. They may issue public rebukes, but privately

many hope Israel succeeds in breaking Hamas

.

What many Western critics miss is the sheer impossibility of Israel’s position. Trading withdrawal for hostages would embolden Hamas and jeopardize the chance of regional normalization with Saudi Arabia. It would signal weakness in a region where, as history shows, peace follows strength — never humiliation.

But what is the alternative? To tell the families of hostages that grand strategy must come before their loved ones’ salvation?

Israel is walking an impossible tightrope — between rescuing lives today and securing its future tomorrow. Between bringing home its hostages and ensuring none are ever taken again. These are not abstract dilemmas. They are decisions that come with names, faces, and funerals.

There are no good options left for Israel — only unbearable ones.

This is no longer a conflict defined by a simple right and wrong. It is a grinding moral crucible in which every path leads to pain. Pain, of course, is Hamas’s currency. And those who pass judgment with sanctimonious certainty — urging Israel to concede while absolving Hamas of responsibility — are doing nothing to free Palestinians, and even less to deter terrorism. They are merely extending Hamas more credit in its favourite currency.

Aviva Klompas is the former director of speechwriting at the Israeli Mission to the United Nations and cofounder of Boundless Israel, a nonprofit organization that partners with community leaders in the U.S. to support Israel education and combat hatred of Jews. She is cohost of the “Boundless Insights” podcast.

National Post

• J.D. Tuccille: The alleged ‘journalistic malpractice’ behind questionable photos of starving Gazans
• Michael Higgins: More grave claims, but still no shovels

The utter singularity of Monday’s White House assembly requires book-length treatment to explain exactly why and how such an extraordinary emergency meeting took place. What went on during the hours of meetings between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, as well with the heads of government of the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Finland, not to mention the secretary general of NATO and the president of the European Union? Apparently, Trump used a lifeline, too, calling his friend President Vladimir Putin during the goings-on.

Was it all an impressive display of transatlantic solidarity against Russian aggression? Or was it a desperate overseas intervention to prevent the American president from blundering his way toward rewarding Russian aggression? Was it a diplomatic summit or adult supervision?

For now that astonishing picture from the Oval Office speaks volumes. Trump has the habit of having his senior cabinet secretaries attend him when receiving foreign visitors, and the courtiers themselves never like to be physically distant from the aged president, lest he forget who they are, as he sometimes does.

It is customary then for the vice-president, secretary of state and secretary of defence to wedge themselves onto the presidential couch. With eight European leaders crammed into the Oval Office on Monday, other courtiers feared getting lost in the shuffle, so the treasury secretary, commerce secretary and press secretary jammed in, too, so much so that poor Marco Rubio, secretary of state

and

acting national security adviser, didn’t even get a seat.

It was all a bit much for the president’s capacity. When introducing his guests around the conference table, he looked for President Alexander Stubb of Finland, who was directly in front of him, beside Zelenskyy. Large place cards were helpfully deployed, but were not sufficient for Trump to recognize the man sitting a few feet away from him, in his direct line of sight.

“President Stubb of Finland … and he’s somebody that we’re all … where, where?” Trump asked.

“I’m right here,” Stubb deadpanned.

Lapsing back to his beauty pageant days, Trump recovered with a compliment: “Oh, you look better than I’ve ever seen you look.”

The non-courtiers had some amusement with that, as the American press is now realizing that it is more fun to mock a president’s senior moments than to cover up for them, as they did under the past diminishing president.

Yet that Finnish detail bears reflection. Why was Stubb placed right across from Trump? Partly because he had played golf with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and they had bonded. If Trump’s affection for Putin is an obstacle to a just peace in Ukraine, then perhaps Ukraine might benefit by offering Trump an

alternative buddy

.

Finland is key in explaining to Trump what he is so slow to understand about Russia. Finland and Russia share a border of more than 1,300 kilometres, and the Finns have spent more than a century worrying about Russian imperialism, ever since Lenin took the train from Finland to St. Petersburg’s Finland Station in 1917, there to ignite the Bolshevik Revolution.

Knowing that Russia’s appetite for empire had already swallowed up Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic states, Finland’s postwar diplomacy was aimed at placating Russia. For this they even bore the humiliation of their policy being known as “Finlandization,” the capitulation of a small country living in fear of a rapacious neighbour.

The Soviet empire though was held in check by transatlantic solidarity. Finland did not join NATO — Finlandization ruled that out — but did benefit from nearby Norway and Denmark being founding members. After the defeat of the Soviet empire, other Russian border states — Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia — joined NATO, but Finland (and Sweden) did not.

Soon after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, both the Finns and Swedes understood that the cold peace of the Cold War could no longer be relied upon given Putin’s desire to rebuild the evil empire. Thus both joined NATO. To the extent that Putin’s patsies believe that he invaded Ukraine to keep NATO at bay, the invasion did the opposite. Putin now has NATO on his Finnish border. And had Ukraine been in NATO before 2014, Putin would not have invaded, no matter who was president.

Stubb’s role in Washington — and in his friendly telephone calls with Trump — was to remind the president what it means to live as Putin’s neighbour. Trump runs hot and cold with Zelenskyy and warm and hot with Putin, so it is in Ukraine’s interest to have a Finnish voice telling Trump not to trust his Russian counterpart. It is possible to put too much stock in that, given that Trump forgot who Stubb was on Monday, despite how good looking he was.

Nevertheless, Ukraine’s allies hope for a different sort of “Finlandization,” where the Finnish lesson is learned that the proper response to Russian aggression is more staunch western alliances. It used to be called — to borrow another Cold War term — “peace through strength”.

National Post

• Raymond J. de Souza: Trump pledged to end Ukraine war in 24 hours. How’s that working out?
• Adam Zivo: Putin spoils peace prospect with demand for veto over Ukraine security

On Friday, Ottawa holstered most of its retaliatory tariffs on U.S. goods, removing the 25 per cent levy on most CUSMA-compliant products coming from the United States, while keeping duties on strategic sectors such as steel, aluminum and autos. The gesture follows a call between Prime Minister Mark Carney and U.S. President Donald Trump and is intended to reopen a path to trade talks.

This reset is precisely why Canada must slow down. A quick, narrow bargain would be a strategic mistake. It would trade permanent leverage for temporary relief and lock us into a worse position when the formal 2026 CUSMA review kicks off, a process whose design already tilts toward U.S. advantage.

CUSMA was never designed to guarantee Canadian market access. As Jared Kushner candidly revealed in 2020: “We’ve essentially sold permanent access to our market, usually on the cheap.… The shortening duration gives the leverage to the stronger party.… Why lock in today’s market rates if you will be able to charge more in the future?” This stark admission exposes trade agreements as projections of power.

The temptation to grab a fast deal is real. Exporters have endured months of whiplash and smaller firms have been absorbing costs at the border. But this is precisely when discipline matters. Rushing concessions for short-term tariff relief would be the path to national regret. Canada should hold fire, ride out the immediate pain and negotiate for breadth, not speed.

The leverage picture is not as grim as the headlines suggest. Some of the most punishing U.S. tariff measures are already facing sustained legal pressure and sectoral pain cuts both ways in key states. The more Canada steadies its position, the more governors and congressional leaders will call for de-escalation.

There should be no doubt that Washington’s demands for any fast fix will be much broader than tariffs alone. The price will be paid in the operating rules of our economy. Agreeing in haste risks hard-coding constraints on Canadian sovereignty for a decade, just to shave a few points off near-term duties.

CUSMA’s review clause opens the door to modifications that can narrow Canada’s policy space in precisely the areas where we need room to manoeuvre. That includes the digital economy, where the United States seeks expansive protections. A rushed tariff deal could quietly weaken Canada’s ability to govern the infrastructure and code that now protect our digital sovereignty.

Rather than rushing headlong into a new deal, Canada’s negotiating team should focus on three key areas: tariffs and market access; rules for a 2030 economy; and domestic retooling.

Ottawa should demand reciprocal de-escalation on a schedule but refuse to swap permanent concessions for temporary relief, while tying rollbacks to U.S. compliance milestones, not Canadian compromises.

It should also use this opportunity to correct asymmetries in CUSMA’s digital and intellectual property chapters so that Canadians can actually govern systems that operate here. That includes explicit space for algorithmic transparency requirements and targeted data-location rules for public services and critical infrastructure.

At the same time, the external negotiations should be paired with internal transformation. Ottawa should launch an “emergency export support fund” for firms weathering tariffs, accelerate U.S.-import substitution in strategic inputs and double down on Canadian-owned intellectual property with commercialization requirements for publicly funded research.

This approach of withstanding and widening works for three main reasons.

First, breadth beats speed. The 2026 review is not a one-meeting event. It is a process that can lead to additions, amendments or, if mishandled, a slow unwind. Canada must arrive with a full-spectrum proposal backed by cross-party and provincial alignment.

Second, goodwill gestures can reopen channels without giving away the store. Canada has already removed many tariffs on non-strategic goods while holding the line on foundational sectors. That buys negotiating space without sacrificing sovereignty.

Third, markets reward credibility. A country that absorbs near-term pressure while investing in productivity, domestic capacity and regulatory clarity is more attractive for investment. “Diversify markets by diversifying what we sell” is not a slogan — it’s the only way to end our branch-plant trap and negotiate as a principal, not a supplicant.

Canada needs a CUSMA mandate that extends beyond tariffs, including dispute resolution certainty, clear rules of origin, space for domestic algorithmic accountability law and safeguards for critical minerals policy. Ottawa should thus establish a $500-million emergency export support fund to assist firms managing cash flow gaps while negotiations continue and restart industry advisory groups for a 90-day sprint, allowing provinces, industry, labour and Indigenous partners to give unified advice to Ottawa’s negotiating team.

Make no mistake: the stakes are high. CUSMA is not simply a tariff schedule. It’s the legal architecture within which our economy operates. We should not trade away our ability to govern digital infrastructure, financial guardrails and strategic minerals for a marginal reprieve on time-limited tariff measures. The review clause means we’ll be back at the table soon. It’s better to arrive with a comprehensive blueprint than to use our leverage prematurely to buy a temporary patch.

In his famous chess match, Garry Kasparov lost to IBM’s Deep Blue not because the computer was brilliant but because it refused to panic. It played patiently, avoided mistakes and waited for human error. Canada faces its own Deep Blue moment. Washington wants us to overreach and concede. Our winning move is steady resolve.

Canada should be generous in tone and hard in substance. Removing many counter-tariffs is a goodwill step. Signing a quick, skinny deal is not. Absorb the pain. Play the long game. Use this opening to renegotiate the architecture, not just the rates.

That is how a middle power preserves sovereignty in a transactional era and secures prosperity for Canadians who will have to live with the outcome long after today’s tariffs fade from the news.

National Post

• Jesse Kline: Renegotiating CUSMA early would be a huge mistake
• John Ivison: Ottawa’s cruising for another trade bruising from Donald Trump

The decision earlier this month by the Supreme Court of British Columbia that the Cowichan tribes hold title over federal, city, and private land in Richmond B.C. that enjoys a higher legal status than the fee simple ownership of the current proprietors is outrageous but may have some positive consequences. The decades and $7 billion that have been spent or pledged for what is called the “reconciliation” process, has finally hit a stone wall. The almost universal desire to be fair to Indigenous people and where appropriate to compensate them for inequitable treatment, has finally collided with the entrenched economic rights and interests of every owner of real property in Canada, including those of Indigenous ancestry.

Inexplicable latitude has been granted to the thickening population of crusaders for indigenous rights. Even the NDP government of British Columbia, which has been pathologically addicted to prostrating itself at the feet of anyone or anything purporting to champion any definition of the Indigenous interest, was reduced to monosyllabic waffling by the court decision brought down by Justice Barbara Young. Premier David Eby’s office declared an ambition to continue seeking a negotiated resolution of the conflict between Aboriginal rights and common law rights of affected property owners, (including the municipal, provincial, and federal governments-of $100 billion of property in Richmond B.C. that is directly affected by the decision).

This is an understandable ambition, but in the circumstances, his government might have pressed the negotiations over the six years that this case has been litigated. Our judiciary has been addicted to truckling to almost any Indigenous claim, on the restricted occasions when the federal and provincial governments have even had the temerity to conduct a defense against them. Now the taxpayers’ negotiating position has been tanked by this ludicrous decision, which is being appealed.

If courts with authority for the whole country were to come to similar judgments, and we cannot doubt that activists will continue to push on an open door and quite rightly take all they can get, then every property title deed in the country is compromised, including the Houses of Parliament. There were only approximately 200,000 native people in all of what is now Canada when the French and British explorers and settlers came here starting at the end of the 15th century. Yet the implication of this ruling is that they legitimately owned all of Canada and that in the patchwork of numbered treaties and other agreements following absorption of the politically organized parts of Canada into the British Empire at the end of the Seven Years War in 1763, ancient and undocumented Aboriginal rights took precedence over any subsequent real estate law allocations of property rights under the common or civil law systems that gradually spread across Canada.

It is somewhat similar to the public policy debacle created by the incompatibility between the claims of climate change alarmists that unless we abolish fossil fuel use, especially petroleum variants, we will all perish within an astonishingly short time by a vertiginous rise in global temperatures; with the fact that practically nobody is prepared to bear the cost in increased energy expenses in any serious pursuit of such a goal. Everybody is in favour of a prudent environment policy; everyone dislikes pollution, but the cost of the draconian changes advocated by radical green fanatics like our new prime minister and his wife are completely unacceptable to the great majority of people. They are also completely unjustified by any probative evidence. Climate is changing but not outside normal cycles and we have no assured idea of the extent to which, world temperatures are affected by human conduct.

In the case of reparations to Indigenous people, as with pursuing a counsel of perfection in environmental matters, claims of purists now vastly exceed what is tolerably affordable or remotely justifiable. What is commonly called reconciliation, meaning doing the necessary to conciliate the natives and make amends for past mistreatment, has become temporarily impossible by allowing militants, who psychologically kidnapped the former prime minister Justin Trudeau, to get away with scurrilous blood libels of the European settlers of this country, accusing them of cultural genocide, an offence which does not exist and in fact means assimilation, which was not in fact pursued, and even of attempted racial genocide. The increasing recognition of the rank falsehood that hundreds of native children died in residential schools, probably as a result of negligence or even outright homicide, and were surreptitiously buried and left unaccounted for, has taken some of the wind out of the sails of the militants. Parks Canada has just discreetly

omitted

the reference to “cultural genocide” in a historical site designation of a residential school. The tide is finally turning.

The contest between Aboriginal and common and civil law property rights was severely aggravated by the inability of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau to gain from the NDP, then led by the amiable Ed Broadbent, agreement to include property rights within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms of Canada with the patriation of the amendment of Canada’s Constitution in 1982. In the Cowichan case, the native complainants did not ask the revocation of common law rights of fee simple ownership, only the recognition of the legal superiority of Aboriginal rights, which they have at least temporarily achieved.

This process isn’t reconciliation. It is collective national self-abasement accompanied by hurling money at plaintiffs like mad abstract artists throwing paint at canvases. Justice Young’s decision is a legal Swiss cheese. Of course, there is a legal eminent domain establishing the rights of property owners, including native persons. Some framework for dealing with these cases has to be legislated and enforced and it must be equitable to the natives but practical for the country. In this, as in lowering the Canadian flag on the masts of all federal buildings including embassies abroad for six months over a shameful disposal of the corpses of hundreds of native children that has not been proven to have happened, we are simply making a collective common law, civil law, and natural law ass of ourselves as a country. We desperately need some sensible government, not reflexive bigoted socialistic authoritarianism, just leadership.

National Post