Crown under fire

Page 6

Dear Editor:

The current dispute between the British Columbia government and the Native Indians over the logging of "Crown land" will probably end up in the courts. The first thing that the B.C. government will have to do is prove that it has the title to the "Crown land." This could be very difficult to prove, if not impossible.

Did the provincial government acquire its so-called "Crown land" by conquest? No. There was no war between the foreign invaders and the Indians of B.C. The foreigners simply moved into the province and produced a group of people that declared itself to be the government.

Did this government, which was composed of foreigners, acquire the land by purchase? No. The Native Indians did not surrender or sell their land to the government.

Did the government acquire their "Crown land" by treaty? In some cases, tiny bits of land on Vancouver Island and in the north-east corner of the province was acquired by treaty, from the Indian owners, in exchange for a few trinkets. But for the most part, the government did not acquire the land in the province by legal means.

If the government did not acquire the land by legal means, then, by what illegal means did it acquire the land?

How can the logging of "Crown land" by the Native Indians be called illegal, if the land still belongs to them?

How can the provincial government sell or lease "Crown land" (it should really be called "Indian land") to anyone if the government does not own the land? How can the government issue permits to log, farm, fish or mine "Crown land" if it does not own the land?

And what about the land under the ocean that the federal government is going to expropriate from the provincial government? Is this land still owned by the Native Indians? Why are the provincial and federal governments planning to spend millions of our tax dollars to line the pockets of lawyers and judges, so they can sit around for months and argue about land that the province cannot prove it owns? Remember, we taxpayers will have to pay the legal costs for both governments in this up-coming court case.

Maybe the people who say that the logging of "Crown land" by the Native Indians is illegal should start talking about negotiating treaties that will guarantee the Native Indians ownership of sufficient land to satisfy their needs. Plus, giving them a fair share of all revenues collected by both the provincial and federal governments.

Had the foreigners who came to this province in the first place dealt fairly with the Native Indians we would not find ourselves in the mess we are in today.

If you find that this letter is interesting, please feel free to send copies of it, along with your own comments, to individuals and organizations that will try to get our provincial and federal governments to stop wasting taxpayers' dollars on useless court cases and start negotiating treaties.

Robert de Pfyffer