B.C. really created this problem for itself by not entering into treaties back then, and that’s why there are these massive land claims

Shortly after British settlers established the Colony of Vancouver Island in 1849, governor James Douglas signed a flurry of treaties with the region’s First Nations to secure lands for fur trapping, mining and other activities.

Known as the Douglas Treaties, the 14 agreements between 1850 and 1854 might have seemed at the time like a template for future arrangements with British Columbia’s Indigenous peoples, who occupied lands stretching from modern-day Vancouver to the northern border with Yukon. Instead, the province stopped signing such agreements — a result of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s refusal to continue funding negotiations — and reached virtually no other treaties for the next 150 years.

The absence of such land agreements has left British Columbia with a patchwork of unresolved, overlapping and highly complex land claims that persist to this day, a gargantuan legal headache that the province only recently began to address. Currently, Indigenous peoples still claim the right to around 80 per cent of B.C.’s lands.

“B.C. really created this problem for itself by not entering into treaties back then, and that’s why there are these massive land claims,” said Kent McNeil, an Indigenous law expert at York University.

The scope of the province’s situation makes it unique in Canada, McNeil said. While Ontario, the prairie provinces and other governments signed treaties with the majority of their First Nations, B.C. simply coasted along as British immigrants settled on non-treaty lands. Between then and now, British Columbia — and by extension, Canada — has suffered incalculable social, legal and economic damages as a result. Never-ending court challenges have continued to sap public resources, while a lack of clarity around title rights has interrupted critical investments like mines, pipelines and port expansions.

The consequences of B.C.’s failure to negotiate treaties came to the forefront again this week, after news emerged of the federal government’s recent deal with the province’s Musqueam Indian Band.

Read the full article at the National Post: How B.C.’s conflicting Indigenous land claims are a problem 150 years in the making