After the past provincial election in Quebec three years ago, the Parti Québécois was nearly left for dead, with only three members in the 125-seat National Assembly and a lowly 14.6 per cent of the votes. How things have changed since!

Monday evening, the PQ won a third byelection in a row, by a wide margin, despite their candidate facing strong opposition from the leader of the Quebec Conservative Party. “This reminds me of the Parti Québécois of the 1970s,” stated péquiste leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon. Indeed, leading in the polls for several months now, the sovereigntist party has clearly become THE alternative to the unpopular government led by François Legault.

The byelection was held in the region of Arthabaska, situated between Montreal and Quebec City. Arthabaska-L’Érable is a semi-rural conservative riding, comprising the city of Victoriaville (population: 48,000).

Éric Duhaime, leader of the provincial Conservative Party, was hoping to win so that his small party would finally be represented in the National Assembly. Most commentators predicted a close race between Duhaime and the PQ candidate, journalist Alex Boissonneault. In fact, Boissonneault won easily with over 46 per cent of the vote, compared with 35 per cent for Duhaime. It is the first time since 1998, 27 years ago, that the riding has elected a Parti Québécois candidate.

Campaigning from door to door, Duhaime and the other candidates tried to tap in some voters’ fear of a third referendum on separation, as promised by Plamondon if the PQ forms the next government. In vain. To the contrary, there appears to be a surge of enthusiasm for independence, at least amongst young Quebecers.

This summer, surveys by two different polling firms put the support for separation at close to 50 per cent among voters aged 18 to 34 years old, a leap of some 15 percentage points compared with earlier polls. It is not clear what caused this sudden rise, but if it reflects reality, this will infuse the separatist movement with a tremendous amount of energy and enthusiasm. For a time seen as an outdated project, Quebec’s independence appears to be making a comeback, perceived by an increasing number of young people as an idea of the future, a solution to the province’s many problems (and theirs). Some even think that an independent Quebec would be in a better position to negotiate with Donald Trump, as baffling as that may sound.

The other major provincial parties did not fare well in the Arthabaska-L’Érable byelection, and their poor performance is a clear signal that they need to redress the boat quickly if they want to be competitive in the next general elections, scheduled for October 2026. The ruling Coalition Avenir Québec, which had previously won the riding with 52 per cent of the vote, saw its share of support crash down to seven per cent. This catastrophic score, combined with very poor polling results, brought Premier Legault to acknowledge Monday evening that Quebecers are not satisfied with his government. Legault, who appears set to continue to lead his party notwithstanding, will announce a major shuffle of his cabinet next month in the hopes that this may begin to turn things around. It is true that the outcome of the past federal election shows that nothing is impossible in politics; however, the premier cannot ignore the fact that that outcome was only made possible by a change at the helm of the Liberal Party of Canada.

Despite running a good local candidate and having a new, well-known leader in former federal minister Pablo Rodriguez, the Quebec Liberals received only 9.3 per cent of the vote in Arthabaska. This was sufficient to overtake the CAQ candidate in third place. Nonetheless, it was a very disappointing score for a party that currently forms the Official Opposition in the provincial parliament.

In his victory speech, PQ Leader Plamondon was careful to emphasize the issues that most Quebecers care about — the cost of living, the poor performance of public services, the government’s huge deficit — rather than separation. The péquistes can be counted on to propose concrete, original solutions to those problems. What ideas will the Liberals and other parties put forward? The Libs, in particular, will be tempted to use their time-tested strategy of agitating the referendum bogeyman in order to scare Quebecers away from the Parti Québécois; the results in Arthabaska-L’Érable are a clear indication that nowadays, such a simplistic tactic is not sufficient.

Polls show that despite the trend in favour of separation among young people, 60 per cent of Quebecers would vote NO to a referendum on independence (the same percentage as in the 1980 referendum). Still, Plamondon is steadfast in his commitment to hold a public consultation on sovereignty if he is chosen to lead the province’s next government. And Brexit has shown that once the referendum ball begins rolling, anything can happen.

National Post

• André Pratte: Pablo Rodriguez has won over the Quebec Liberals. That was the easy part
• André Pratte: Energy East is still a pipe dream. Quebec support won’t last

If Prime Minister Mark Carney is looking for ways to save money, he can start by shooting fish in a barrel: He can scrap the gun confiscation program that law enforcement leaders and academic experts say won’t work.

Carney’s government says it’s working super hard on a spending review. Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne told the rest of cabinet to

come

up with “ambitious savings proposals” to control government outlay.

Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree doesn’t have to hunt very far for his savings proposal; all he needs to do is cancel Ottawa’s gun confiscation scheme and save taxpayers potentially billions of dollars.

The letter from Champagne called on ministers to assess “whether existing programs within their departments are meeting their objectives.” And in the case of Ottawa’s gun confiscation and payment program, that’s a big fat no.

All the scheme has accomplished so far is increasing costs to taxpayers. And that’s all that it looks likely to do.

When Ottawa originally

announced

its buyback program in 2020, the government banned 1,500 different makes and models of guns. After additional waves of bans, the list now contains more than 2,000 different models.

The feds have only recently started to seize firearms from businesses, and the government has yet to take a single firearm away from individual gun owners.

The

government

said in 2019 that the program would cost $200 million. Now it has decided to spend more than $342 million on the program just this year, according to the

Main Estimates

. Some other projections by firearm policy experts put the total

cost

to taxpayers at $6 billion. Scrapping the program today would allow the government to cut its losses and stop wasting any more money on this unsuccessful venture.

The government’s plan to seize guns from licensed Canadian firearm owners is a colossal failure from every angle.

It’s not a failure just because it was designed incorrectly and needs more work, it’s a failure because it was never going to work in the first place. That’s because those individuals who are willing to commit crimes with guns aren’t going to participate in a government program to take their firearms away.

That’s simple logic, but it also echoes what the facts and the experts are saying.

“Buyback programs are largely ineffective at reducing gun violence, in large part because the people who participate in such programs are not likely to use those guns to commit violence,”

said

University of Toronto professor Jooyoung Lee, who studies gun violence in Canada.

The police are saying the same thing.

“The majority of gun crime in Canada is committed with illegal firearms that are traced back to the United States,” 

said

Brian Sauvé, the president of the National Police Federation (NPF), the union that represents the RCMP.

The NPF also says that Ottawa’s confiscation program “diverts extremely important personnel, resources and funding away from addressing the more immediate and growing threat of criminal use of illegal firearms.”

Since the government made it illegal for Canadians to use the banned firearms in 2020, gun crime in Canada has

increased

.

The government of New Zealand took guns away from its citizens in 2019, and its ban was even more far-reaching than Ottawa’s. There were 379 more violent firearm offences in 2023 in New Zealand,

compared

with 2018, the year before its confiscation program began.

Canadians don’t believe this program is the most effective way to reduce gun crime either. Fifty-five per cent of Canadians think introducing tougher measures to stop the smuggling of guns into Canada from the United States is the most effective way to reduce gun crime, according to

Leger

polling.

Ottawa’s gun confiscation is expensive, it’s failing to achieve its goals and Canadians don’t think it’s likely to work.

So, when Anandasangaree presents his plan for savings to Champagne, scrapping the gun ban and confiscation scheme should be at the top of his list.

Special to National Post

Gage Haubrich is the Prairie Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

• FIRST READING: Internal report shows Ottawa doubtful that wildly overbudget gun ‘buy back’ will ever work
• Liberals add nearly 200 more firearms to prohibited weapon list

It is tempting to dismiss a court challenge over a Saskatchewan pronoun law as a waste of legal resources and time, a squandering of taxpayers’ money and a misreading of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

And yet one person
interviewed
by the CBC said that because of the law she had “kids come up to me saying they were afraid that they were going to die, basically, because of their homes being unsafe.”

Well, clearly, if teenage boys and girls feel they are going to die because parents aren’t using their preferred pronouns then obviously no expense should be spared.

On Monday, the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal decided to prolong this travesty of justice by sending a challenge over the provincial government’s pronoun policy back to a lower court.

The government passed its pronoun law using  section 33 of the Charter (the notwithstanding clause.) Nobody is challenging that the government didn’t have the right to do that.

Also, the court case started over the government’s original policy (before it passed a law.) That policy has been repealed so that part of the case is entirely moot.

However, the appeal court said the original judge did have the right to declare whether he thought Charter rights had been limited — but he didn’t have to. The judge can use his discretion about whether to make a declaration or not.

So the appeal court is saying the Saskatchewan government has done nothing wrong but a judge still has the right to scold it if he believes the Charter has been infringed in some way.

No one should be surprised if the headline on this article is: Judges uphold judge’s right to chide government.

And all this legal brouhaha is because the Saskatchewan government — quite sensibly — believes that schools shouldn’t be in the business of allowing young children to impulsively change their pronouns without telling their parents.

In 2023, the Saskatchewan government agreed on a policy that teachers and schools must get written consent from parents before using the preferred pronoun of a student under 16.

Premier Scott Moe
said
at the time that the policy was about “the rights of a parent to ensure they are involved in their child’s decision.”

When a non-profit group called the UR Pride Centre for Sexuality and Gender Diversity at the University of Regina launched a court challenge over the policy, the government put the pronoun policy into law and coupled it with the notwithstanding clause.

UR Pride claimed that the government’s policy was infringing students’ Charter rights under Section 7 (everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person) and Section 15 (every individual is equal before and under the law.) The group now also claims that Section 12 (everyone has the right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment) has been infringed.

A reminder: We are talking pronouns, folks.

At the Court of King’s Bench for Saskatchewan, the government argued that because it had invoked the notwithstanding clause the court had no jurisdiction to hear arguments about infringements of the Charter.

The judge ruled against the government. The government appealed. The appeal court sided with the original judge. The case now goes back to the lower court who may, or may not, reprimand the government.

Meanwhile, neither court has actually ruled on whether the government’s law infringes any Charter rights at all.

And so the case, about a perfectly legal law, concerning a very reasonable policy, relating to upholding parental rights, drags on.

Such is the interest in the case that intervenors included: The Advocates’ Society, an association of  6,000 judges, lawyers and advocates; Amnesty International Canadian Section; British Columbia Civil Liberties Association; Canadian Civil Liberties Association; Canadian Union of Public Employees, and the Canadian Teachers’ Federation.

A total of 29 lawyers were needed at the appeal court to represent everybody.

In allowing the case to go back to the lower court, the appeal court said, “The proper functioning of our constitutional democracy is enhanced, not impaired, if Canada’s citizens, and legislators alike, are made aware when legislation that is allowed to operate by virtue of s. 33 does so in a way that limits Charter rights and freedoms.”

In other words, the courts have the right to tell governments that although they are may be acting legally, they can still be wrong.

However, one judge disagreed with the court.

In his dissenting opinion, Justice Neal Caldwell said that once the government had invoked the notwithstanding clause, the courts had no say in the matter.

“The invocation of s. 33 of the Charter temporarily ends the debate between the judicial and legislative branches of government, leaving the political or policy merits of the Act or provision in question to the electorate to determine.”

A judicial finding of “let the people decide” is a welcome breath of commonsense. It is unfortunate that it is limited to one judge, but at least it’s a start.

National Post

• Terry Newman: Quebec’s anti-Israel protesters mimicking early tactics of FLQ terrorists
• Jamie Sarkonak: This is what reconciliation looks like — the end of property rights

On Thursday evening, protesters gathered outside of Industry Minister Mélanie Joly’s Montreal residence to teach her two very important lessons: that there’s no pleasing the demographics of her riding; and that speaking out of both sides of her mouth to appease voters doesn’t pay.

In a

video

circulating on social media, protesters can be seen holding Palestinian flags. Viewers can hear the banging of pots in the background — a common protest accompaniment in Quebec. Several of those gathered have their faces covered with keffiyehs.

Hamas loyalists showed up at the private residence of @melaniejoly while flashing messages on her wall under the approval & protection of the @SPVM pic.twitter.com/7w6wt3xDKB

— Leviathan (@l3v1at4an) August 8, 2025

Also visible is a stream of mostly English words projected across the top of her apartment building, proclaiming, “Melanie war criminal — every time Melanie lies a child in Gaza dies. Israel terrorist. Melanie complice (complicit).”

An unidentified woman with short blonde hair and a keffiyeh draped over her shoulders speaks through a megaphone in French. Her words translate to: “Canada’s arming of Israel during this genocide is the greatest stain of our generation. Ms. Joly’s actions warrant immediate consequences.” She did not elaborate on what she felt those consequences should be.

This kind of aggressive and threatening behaviour toward politicians and school administrators who displease pro-Palestinian protesters in Montreal has escalated since the October 7 massacre.

In October 2023, not long after Hamas’s barbaric attack on Israel, sit-ins were already being held at the Montreal offices of Liberal MPs David Lametti, Rachel Bendayan and Joly, who was then serving as minister of foreign affairs.

The blood at the Nova Festival had barely dried, yet the protesters weren’t there to condemn Hamas’s actions. They were there to

pressure MPs

who had not yet signed a letter demanding a ceasefire. At the time, the Liberals still officially supported Israel’s right to defend itself, though that seemed to be changing quickly — not even a month after the attacks, 33 MPs, including 23 Liberals, had already signed the letter.

It was clear, even at the time, that there was a well-organized pressure campaign aimed at convincing MPs to speak out against Israel’s war of self-defence. A Montreal Gazette report at the time noted that the demonstrations at political offices were “part of a pan-Canadian series of sit-ins organizers said were taking place at 17 offices in 12 cities across the country in solidarity with Palestinians.”

The campaign has continued ever since. On Dec. 18, 2023, a rally of about 50 protesters organized by the Palestine Solidarity Network Canada gathered outside Steven Guilbeault’s Montreal constituency office to

pressure

him to support a ceasefire.

In September 2024, three pro-Palestinian protesters were arrested and charged with criminally harassing then-immigration minister Marc Miller, who represents a suburban Montreal riding. One called him a “child-killer.” But the charges were

dropped

.

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante also got a taste of pro-Palestinian protesters’ aggression. On July 9, 2024, a council meeting in Montreal was

disrupted

by about a dozen protesters. This resulted in the temporary removal of Plante and other councillors as a precaution.

Prior to this disruption, Plante had been more critical of McGill than the protesters, negatively contrasting its approach to an anti-Israel encampment on its campus, which was eventually taken down with the help of a public health order, with Université du Québec à Montréal, which

ceded to most of the protesters’ demands

. But a few days before the council meeting was disrupted, she drew the ire of protesters by

ordering the dismantling

of a Pro-Palestinian encampment in Victoria Square.

In October 2024, three months after they disrupted her meeting, she finally called pro-Palestinian protest activity in Montreal, which included widespread vandalism, “

unacceptable

,” saying that it would “not be tolerated.”

Yet a month later, after anti-Israel rioters smashed windows and burned cars, she said the violence was the work of “professional vandals” and “agitators,” suggesting a few bad apples had co-opted otherwise peaceful protests.

It’s not only politicians’ homes that these pro-Palestinian groups target.

In May 2024, McGill University President Deep Saini

told

the campus community via an email that the homes of school administrators had been targeted more than once. He described the actions these protesters took as being designed to “threaten, coerce and scare people.”

In one instance, he said that protesters stayed for hours and used a megaphone to shout, “You can’t hide.” In another, an administrator was followed home from campus and harassed.

“None of this is peaceful protesting,” wrote Saini. “It is completely unacceptable. In each case we have reported what has happened to the police and urged them to act.”

Saini said that these tactics were used to try to pressure the administration after students chose to walk away from negotiations to end the encampment, and was baffled by the inaction on the part of Montreal police.

It is all baffling at first glance, until you consider the province’s history of violent activism and its ties to the Palestinian movement.

Quebec is the only province in Canada where an activist group has killed a government official. In 1970, a separatist group, the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), kidnapped Pierre Laporte, Quebec’s minister of labour, and James Cross, a British diplomat, during what is known as the October Crisis. Laporte was eventually murdered.

The escalation from activist protests to kidnapping and murder takes time. It doesn’t happen overnight.

The FLQ, like these pro-Palestinian protesters, dabbled in the

rhetoric

of anti-colonialism and anti-capitalism. Two FLQ members, Normand Roy and Michel Lambert,

were trained

in guerrilla warfare by the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The FLQ started out as a non-violent movement in the early 1960s. It distributed propaganda and painted pro-independence slogans on public buildings.

But its actions quickly escalated to Molotov cocktail attacks and then bombings. In 1963, an FLQ bomb exploded at an Army recruitment centre in Montreal, killing a night watchman by the name of Wilfred O’Neil.

In 1969, FLQ terrorists bombed the Montreal Stock Exchange, injuring 27 people. That same year, the FLQ bombed the home of Montreal Mayor Jean Drapeau, who opposed Quebec separatism.

It seems as though Montreal police were not very useful back then, either. The situation continued to escalate until it reached a crescendo in October 1970, with the kidnapping of Cross and Laporte.

Laporte was eventually found strangled to death in the trunk of a car. Cross was released two months later, through negotiations that resulted in his abductors being granted safe passage to Cuba.

Minor bombings still occurred after this, though public support for the FLQ began to dwindle. But perhaps the group, and the radical ideas it espoused, never completely disappeared. Today, anti-Israel groups are emulating many of the tactics used by the FLQ, and the relationship between Quebec activists and the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s goals seems like it’s been revived.

It started out with relatively peaceful protests, but quickly escalated with the firebombing of multiple Montreal-area Jewish institutions in November 2023 and the riot at the pro-Palestinian, anti-NATO protest a year later. And it is clear that many of these demonstrators have no qualms about targeting politicians they disagree with personally, including harassing them at their private homes.

Their acts have increasingly become normalized by the frequency of the protests, the lack of sufficient police action, equivocating government statements, misplaced sympathies from academics and celebrities, and broader anti-Israel and antisemitic narratives that have permeated the news media and popular culture.

Will people have to die before Canadian governments, police forces and the general public start taking the threat posed by these protesters seriously? Let’s hope not.

National Post

tnewman@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/TLNewmanMTL

• Jamie Sarkonak: This is what reconciliation looks like — the end of property rights
• Adam Pankratz: B.C.’s shameful race to give up public land

There are dozens of quotes on the

lessons

of history and the consequences of failing to learn from it. They generally conclude that while history is a valuable teacher, people make unreliable students. It’s one the less appealing elements of human nature, one we have a very uneven record of addressing.

Aug. 15 marks the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in the Second World War, ending the deadliest conflict in history. The New York Times

recently

ran a feature on the rapidly declining ranks of Japanese veterans able to recall the war, and their bitter recollections of the savageries perpetrated in the name of patriotism and honour. Yet as memories fade, it reports, so does

acceptance

of Japan’s postwar adherence to pacifism.

The reasons for the reversal reflect a sense that, eight decades after the bloodshed of the 1930s and ’40s, the world is once again becoming too dangerous to ignore. Japan’s coast is just 170 kilometres from China, barely 20 kilometres from Russia, and 280 kilometres from North Korea, three countries under the thumb of increasingly militaristic and aggressive regimes. During the past global war it was Japan that was bent on expanding its empire; now it’s a potential target lacking the might it chose to reject.

The question arises: in debating rearmament, is Japan forgetting the lessons of history, or simply reflecting current realities?

There’s no question its neighbours have formed an axis at least as formidable as the one that linked Germany, Japan and Italy in the 1930s. China has the world’s largest navy, has claimed rights over much of the South China Sea and employs risky and confrontational tactics against even the most unthreatening of neighbouring shipping.

Beijing is actively strengthening alliances with similarly combative powers. According to the Center for European Policy Analysis, Chinese

support

for Moscow has reached “unprecedented” levels since President Vladimir Putin launched his unilateral attack on Ukraine. China retains close relations with North Korea’s totalitarian regime, which in turn has sent thousands of troops to bolster Russia’s battered front lines.

Japanese leaders are struggling to

adjust

to the threat. For eight decades and 13 U.S. presidents the country rested its security largely on the presence of thousands of U.S. troops in an

array

of bases across the country. In 2022 it agreed to extend the pact for another five years and spend US$8 billion hosting the foreign forces, buying weapons and further integrating training exercises. Yet now it watches nervously as Washington distances itself

from

friends, allies and partners, undermining and endangering institutions and practices painstakingly put in place to prevent another disastrous stumble into global conflict.

Like Japan, Russia suffered horrendously from the Second World War: 25 million dead, a

fact

of which Putin is unquestionably aware but shows no inclination to respect. Maybe “learning” from history has a different connotation in Moscow, a synonym, perhaps, for “dismiss,” or “ignore.” In any case, Putin has single-mindedly prosecuted a conflict responsible for an estimated 1.5 million casualties, a million of them Russian, and appears determined to press on regardless, scouring remote villages and emptying prisons in search of

new

bodies to feed into the grinder.

Israel’s government, too, shows a willingness to blind itself to the recent past. Repeated invasions of Lebanon over the decades have done little to eradicate the threat of Hezbollah terrorism, while a 38-year occupation of Gaza failed to prevent Hamas from gaining control within a year of Israel’s 2005 departure. Yet the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu now proposes a renewed takeover of a region reduced to rubble, despite doubts it will produce the return of hostages still held by Hamas, or the long-term security Israel seeks.

Netanyahu has

little

to show for the 22 months since Hamas triggered the conflict. Antisemitism has surged in much of the world. Attacks on Jews, on synagogues, on Jewish institutions have proliferated. Sympathy for Palestinians and the Palestinian cause has risen in tandem, a de facto victory for Hamas despite the horrific level of death and destruction it’s brought to Gazans. Far from affirming Israel’s unquestionable right to defend itself from attack, it’s driven

away

sympathizers, long-time friends and reliable allies, and opened Israelis to accusations of brutality.

Which, then, is the proper lesson to take from the horrendous sufferings of war? Japan committed itself to disarmament and nonaggression and now finds itself feeling weakened and vulnerable as a result. Moscow blithely continues piling up Russian corpses as if yesterday’s dead never happened, or didn’t matter. Israel, determined to “never again” expose itself to the hatred of bigots and terrorists, finds itself increasingly isolated, divided and at odds with once-reliable friends and allies.

The difficulty with learning from history is that context varies, conclusions differ and every country views experience through its own particular prism. Time allows future generations to judge whether previous ones made the right decisions. But it doesn’t guarantee theirs will be wiser.

National Post

• Andrew Richter: Nuclear war is still a threat to humanity
• Japan conducts first missile test on its own territory as part of deterrent against Chinese aggression

On Thursday, a B.C. superior court judge gave at least half a billion dollars’ worth of government land in an 800-acre zone in southeast Richmond to the Cowichan First Nation, and lit a fuse that could lead to the obliteration of private landowners’ legal title in the area.

This case of “land back” in action (

Cowichan Tribes v. Canada)

 casts a shadow over the country’s property system. It jeopardizes the default means of owning land in Canada — the estate in fee simple, where owners have exclusive rights to sell land — wherever Aboriginal title is found to exist.

Aboriginal title is the right of an Indigenous group to use, control and reap benefits from the land. It’s granted to claimant groups that can prove they are descended from the sole occupants of an area at the time the British asserted sovereignty. Unlike regular fee simple ownership, it’s enshrined in Section 35 of the 1982 Constitution and impossible to sell to anyone but the Crown.

The Cowichan claim covered the site of their summer village near the mouth of the Fraser River, where they had established continuous, exclusive seasonal occupancy dating back to European contact in the 1790s.

In 1846, the British Crown asserted sovereignty over that land and the rest of what would become B.C. The following years would see property being surveyed and auctioned off to

public

and private buyers — but not the Cowichan summer village. Instead, it was set aside in 1860 and continued to be used as a settlement for the group. Colonial officials considered the possibility of making it into a reserve, and took initial steps to do so. After B.C. joined Canada in 1871, however, the summer village was carved into parcels and

sold

over the years until 1914. Purchasers

included

private parties (including “well-placed men” in the colony) and even the

municipality

itself; some of the land purchased privately would eventually be sold back to the Crown. Today, about half of these lots are

held

by public bodies, with the other half falling under private ownership.

 

The question before the B.C. Supreme Court was whether the taking of those village lands was legal to begin with. Justice Barbara Young (a Harper appointee,

by the way

) concluded it was not.

Young found that in the Crown’s Cowichan-related dealings, it was obligated to act in the group’s best interest; in divvying up the village land in the 1870s, the Crown’s duty to consult was triggered, even though the concept wouldn’t be invented for another century or so. It also

violated

a law that required reserve lands to be given to the federal government, not sold. Though no actual reserve had been created, the judge

found

that colonial officials’ half-intentions turned the summer village into a “provisional reserve,” warranting a transfer to federal hands.

So, since the initial parcelling and selling of those lands has been deemed illegal by the court, the legal foundation for their ownership by private and government entities is now gone.

For the government, which was left holding the bag more than a century after the land’s initial sale, the consequences are severe. Crown fee simple title on strategic port lands along the Fraser has mostly been

declared

“defective and invalid” because that’s what the Cowichan asked the court to do. Not all properties in this category were listed on B.C.’s assessment database, but those I could find were valued at $546,485,000 in total.

Private parties fared better: the Cowichan did not ask the court to nullify these interests, and so they continue to exist. The judge

insisted

that Aboriginal title and regular property ownership — fee simple title — can co-exist in the same place. But she also ruled that the Crown now owes a duty to the Cowichan to mysteriously “reconcile” their interests with those of private owners through negotiation “in a manner consistent with the honour of the Crown.” In other words, the Crown is expected to have the back of the Indigenous group in its tug-of-war with private landowners.

“Fee simple interests and the exercise of associated rights will go unaffected in practice when Aboriginal title is recognized over that land, unless or until the Aboriginal title holder successfully takes remedial action in respect of the fee simple interests,” she

wrote

. “Or, preferably, until the matter is resolved through negotiation between the Aboriginal title-holding group and the Crown.” They will be unaffected until they are affected. Wonderful.

The judge further suggested that a resolution could follow from lawsuits, buyouts or simply being left as is. A New Brunswick court wrestling with this same issue last year was more blunt about what this looks like in reality: it

proposed

that judges could order the Crown to expropriate private land and give it to the Aboriginal titleholders.

Those landowners can’t feel too good right now. On the west side of the Cowichan title area, these include a golf course and various acreage homes with orchards out back. One of these, a nine-acre

blueberry farm

, is currently listed for $5.3 million. To the east is an industrial zone home to Canadian Tire and Wayfair warehouses. Canadian Tire’s Brampton distribution centre was

sold

last year for $258 million.

It’s possible this decision will remain a

narrow

piece of guidance to help parse out the modern fate of a limited number of small former village sites in B.C.; it could be overturned on appeal. On the other hand, were it to be affirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada, it would apply everywhere, potentially affecting property ownership wherever there are unresolved land claims: primarily B.C., which is

covered

in them, and New Brunswick, where just about the entire province is

being claimed

by the Wolastoqey and Mi’kmaq.

Theoretically, much of the country is safe because it sits on land where Indigenous groups gave up their Aboriginal title by signing the numbered land secession treaties.

As for bigger-picture implications, well, the court just threw the reliability of the property system into flux. Gone is the notion of buying real estate and knowing that it will be yours until you choose to dispose of it. That’s not good for investment. When Richmond’s lawyers pointed this out, the judge

tone-policed

them for being inflammatory: “Richmond’s submission that a declaration of Aboriginal title will destroy the land title system and the (Land Title Act), wreak economic havoc and harm every resident in British Columbia is not a reasoned analysis on the evidence. It inflames and incites rather than grapples with the evidence and scope of the claim in this case.”

This would be less concerning if courts could resist the urge to constantly push boundaries and bias the decision-making process in favour of Indigenous applicants, but that isn’t so. The 1982 Constitution’s vaguely worded Section 35 has evolved into a complex framework that holds government officials from two centuries ago to the modern duty-to-consult standard.

In cases like these, the conduct of colonial officials is often scrutinized with meticulous, uncharitable detail. Where their actions were ambiguous, they might be massaged into something they’re not: here, the judge’s creative stretching of “reserve” resulted in a land grab. Elsewhere, she

interpreted

the promise of a colonial official to treat a Cowichan murder suspect fairly in his trial as a broad nation-to-nation gesture triggering constitutional responsibility.

The Cowichan, on the other hand, were evaluated on a much different basis. The evidence from the 1820s painted a portrait of a slaving society, feared by the other tribes in the region. One anthropologist

testified

to their historic practice of “cutting heads off, hanging them on the bow of a canoe and holding them up” as a means of intimidation. They would

take

women and children as slaves from surrounding tribes, on one occasion

stealing

the daughter of a Musqueam chief.

Young, who

described

the Cowichan as “fierce” throughout her decision, found that their brutality erected “psychological barriers” that warded others from their summer village. This

helped

establish title to the land. Also considered was their mythology and tradition

That’s the backdrop against which Aboriginal law creeps forward. Today, the uncommitted ponderings of colonial officers are being reinterpreted as full intent, to displace Crown ownership interests in a small patch of Richmond. We could be one court challenge away from the same thing happening to private land. What happens when the courts decide it’s time to start pecking away at the legitimacy of the numbered treaties, which protect much of the country from Aboriginal title claims?

Ideally, we’d pre-empt this with a national debate about modifying or outright removing Section 35 from the Constitution, which is the reason for this fee simple override. It’s now being used to remedy the loss of historic villages to colonial expansion — but if it sets the stage for a private property land grab centuries later, it’s gone too far.

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TOP STORY

The Supreme Court of Canada announced this week that its chief justice, Richard Wagner, would soon be embarking on a public relations tour of Yellowknife, N.W.T.

Along with two other justices — Nicholas Kasirer and Michelle O’Bonsawin — he’ll spend two days gladhanding with high school students, meeting with Indigenous elders and hosting forums about the glories of Canada’s highest court.

“The Supreme Court of Canada is one of the country’s most significant institutions,” reads an official media release, which adds that Yellowknifers will be informed about how the court is the stoic guarantor of their “strong and secure democratic country.”

Sitting judges do not traditionally embark on PR tours. Not in Canada, nor in any other corner of the English-speaking world. For much of the Supreme Court’s 150-year history, in fact, the general idea was to avoid the spotlight as much as possible.

But this has been happening a lot lately. As the Supreme Court of Canada keeps wading into controversy by striking down legislation or forcing parliaments to adopt new laws, they’ve simultaneously been leaning hard into a big-budget PR strategy framing themselves as the defenders of democracy.

The Yellowknife visit is one of five goodwill visits scheduled this year for the Supreme Court of Canada, all of them to celebrate the court’s 150th anniversary. A two-day visit to Victoria in February ended with a $135-per-plate “engagement” dinner

that was billed

as a chance to participate in a “historic moment.”

This year saw the court team up with the Royal Canadian Mint to issue a commemorative Loonie. “The new $1 circulation coin serves as a shining tribute to (the Supreme Court of Canada’s) unwavering dedication to the rule of law, and its service to Canadians — past, present, and future,” reads promotional literature.

The court commissioned a children’s book which features Chief Justice Wagner teaming up with an anthropological owl to teach a class of wide-eyed school children about how the Supreme Court makes “decisions that affect all Canadians.” Children are also being invited to

submit artwork and essays praising the court’s work

, with winners to be awarded with an “in person or virtual meeting with the Chief Justice of Canada.”

The Supreme Court of Canada happens to be the only public institution in the country where the incumbents are honoured with triumphal artwork. At Rideau Hall or Parliament Hill, they wait until office-holders have retired before rendering them in portraiture.

As has been covered multiple times by the National Post, the Supreme Court of Canada’s Grand Entrance Hall features a bronze bust of Wagner that likely cost around $18,000.

Curiously, however, the Supreme Court of Canada has consistently denied knowing who paid for it and why. The statue was funded by an anonymous donor, and Wagner has said he doesn’t know who it is. “We don’t have gifts, it’s more like tokens of appreciation that we receive,” he told National Post in June.

The court is even commissioning a literal makeover. Since its 1875 inception, the Supreme Court of Canada’s official regalia has consisted of fur-trimmed red robes inspired by English legal traditions that

date back as far as the 17th century.

But those are now being discarded in favour of something more modern. “The moment has come to have new robes that better reflect Canadian identity. The new robes will be made in Canada,” Wagner

told the official publication

of the Canadian Bar Association. Oxford-based legal critic Kerry Sun called it a “Year Zero move.”

The Supreme Court also continues to be particularly active on social media, although notably not on the one platform where it’s received the most criticism: X.com. In February — right around the time that many left-leaning users were leaving the platform in political opposition to owner Elon Musk — the Supreme Court appeared to do the same.

“Dear subscribers — moving forward, we will be focusing our communication efforts on other platforms. We invite you to follow us on our LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube accounts to continue receiving our updates. Thank you for your support!” read a statement.

Dear subscribers – moving forward, we will be focusing our communication efforts on other platforms. We invite you to follow us on our LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube accounts to continue receiving our updates. Thank you for your support!

— Supreme Court of Canada (@SCC_eng) February 26, 2025

Naturally, all this extra travel, promotional literature and communications work is not coming cheap.

As recently as 2017,

it cost $34,882,922

to keep the doors open at the Supreme Court of Canada. Over the next year, their

budget is expected to top out

at $47,967,792. That’s an increase of 37 per cent; roughly on par with the ballooning costs

charted by nearly every other federal agency

since the 2015 election of a Liberal government.

All the while, the rates of cases being decided by the court is at historic lows.

In the late 1990s, the Supreme Court

was disposing

of about 80 cases per year. Last year, the court

issued 50 decisions

. The year before that, just 36.

But if the Supreme Court of Canada is suddenly ramping up its PR strategy, it’s occurring amid a period of heightened controversy for the top court. Although its decisions are few, they disproportionately have the effect of rewriting or compelling legislation.

Just last month, the Supreme Court of Canada

rewrote a section

of the Youth Criminal Justice Act making it more difficult to apply adult sentences to youth offenders. In 2022, the Court threw out a law requiring mass-killers to serve consecutive sentences for each one of their victims, deeming it “cruel and unusual punishment” to deny parole eligibility to the perpetrator of a mass shooting at a Quebec City mosque.

That particular decision yielded a rare statement of condemnation from former prime minister Stephen Harper. “Today’s decision by the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of mass murderer Alexandre Bissonnette devalues the lives of his victims,” he said at the time.

Most notably, Canadian politicians have become increasingly comfortable with discussing the use of the Notwithstanding Clause, a section of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that effectively allows Parliaments to override the Supreme Court. A June review found that after 30 years of “relative neglect,” the notwithstanding clause had been invoked in a record “six different provincial laws since 2018.”

During the 2025 federal election, meanwhile, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre promised to become the first prime minister to invoke the clause at a federal level in order to shield bail and sentencing reform from Supreme Court jurisdiction.

The court has not reacted well to the newfound criticism. In 2024, when a Supreme Court decision used the term “person with a vagina” in place of “woman,” it drew a unanimous condemnation from the Quebec National Assembly.

At his annual press conference that year, Wagner

said he and his colleagues

were “witnessing attacks on our judges and our institutions.”

“Comments like this undermine public confidence in the justice system. We should be especially concerned when elected representatives say these things,” he said in French.

On Oct. 6, the Supreme Court’s new clothing is expected to be debuted at “a ceremonial opening of the judicial year” — which is itself another Wagner innovation.

While Supreme Court justices participate in the official opening of Parliament, they haven’t historically bothered with high-production ceremonies for their own branch of government. Nevertheless, in June Wagner said in his annual press conference that it would be a chance for “the legal community to come together and reflect on the issues facing our justice system.”

It’s not entirely unprecedented. The last time the Supreme Court held a ceremonial opening was a one-off in 1986.

Perhaps tellingly, the opening was a bid to be more “open and accessible” to Canadians during a period when the country had similarly begun nurturing concerns that their top court was exceeding its authority.

The Supreme Court of Canada had just issued its decision on R v. Morgentaler which effectively abolished all laws governing abortion in the country — a legal framework that stands to this day. And, notably, it did so using a Charter of Rights of Freedoms that had only been made law just four years before — and whose champion, then prime minister Pierre Trudeau, had assured Canadians that it would never be used to rule on abortion.

As one court-watcher, law professor Tim Christian, commented on the 1986 ceremonial opening at the time, “people haven’t yet grasped the degree to which the Supreme Court now has the authority to make final decisions on questions of constitutional morality.”

 

IN OTHER NEWS

Jenni Byrne was in charge of the Conservative campaign during the 2025 election. And according to some Tory insiders, her

inflexible approach

is the reason they lost. While she hasn’t been turfed outright from her influential position within the party, she

did reveal this week

that she won’t be heading up the next Conservative campaign.

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