There is a debate unfolding around kitchen tables in British Columbia. At its heart is a question that should concern every Canadian: If citizens cannot rely on the Crown’s recognition of registered land ownership, what other promise of government can they trust?
When that certainty is called into question, the consequences reach far beyond the person whose name appears on the title. It affects the family paying a mortgage, the farmer building a future, the business owner investing their savings and every Canadian who has been told that if they follow the law, the law will protect them.
Property is not merely about wealth and land is not just another asset. It is about independence, security, family, housing, livelihood and the ability to build something that endures generations.
The land is beneath our homes, farms, businesses and infrastructure. Mortgages, investment, taxation and government revenues all depend on people being able to trust that a registered title is unassailable.
Crown promised and the people trusted
Canada inherited a constitutional tradition built around one fundamental principle: government itself is subject to law.
Governments regulate property. They tax it. Under lawful authority, they may expropriate it. Property rights have never been absolute.
But the Crown is not above the law.
British Columbia’s land-title system was built on this foundation. The Crown surveyed land, granted interests, established a registry, collected property taxes and created a legal framework through which generations of British Columbians secured their present, staked their future and ensured a legacy for their descendants.
People invest their life savings and organize their lives around the reasonable expectation that the system means what it says. That is not a technical detail. It is the foundation of trust between citizens and the state.
The government asked people to trust the system. People did.
So, what responsibility does government have when that trust is threatened?
Read: Pouce Coupe council calls on Province to protect private property
What does ‘indefeasible’ mean now
Section 23 of British Columbia’s Land Title Act uses remarkably clear language:
“An indefeasible title, as long as it remains in force and uncancelled, is conclusive evidence at law and in equity, as against the Crown and all other persons, that the person named in the title as registered owner is indefeasibly entitled to an estate in fee simple to the land described in the indefeasible title”
That is an extraordinary promise that now appears broken.
In the 2025 Cowichan Tribes v. Canada (Attorney General) decision, his Majesty’s Supreme Court of British Columbia recognized Aboriginal title over approximately 732 acres in Richmond, including land held in fee simple. The ruling also concluded that sections 23 and 25 of the Land Title Act do not apply to those lands or any other private property with court-declared Aboriginal title on it.
That decision begs a troubling question: If someone purchases land in good faith through the Crown’s own fee simple registration system, what protection exists when an interest outside that system is later recognized over the same land?
If “indefeasible” does not mean the registered ownership is secure from a competing claim, then what exactly does it mean?
And what happens to the person who trusted that it did?
Security of fee simple affects everyone
This is not just a landowner issue.
Renters live and work on fee simple properties, and so, depend on the security of legally recognized property interests. Bank loans depend on mortgage security. All levels of governments depend on identifiable ownership for taxation and planning. Businesses invest because they trust that the legal interests underlying those investments can be identified and enforced.
All of these entities are ultimately built upon the Crown’s legal framework for land, making it fundamental to the functioning of our society and economy. And that reflects the deeper principle in Clause 39 of the Magna Carta: the “law of the land” stands between the Crown and the arbitrary deprivation of a person’s rights or possessions.
Governments change. Ministers change. Legislatures change. Laws change. Yet the Crown endures. And it is expected to stand behind the legal order administered in its name. But that continuity only means something if the obligations undertaken in its name are honoured.
The question raised by the Cowichan case is not restricted to Richmond. It is about the meaning of a Crown grant, property ownership and the law of the land.
It is about what happens when the Crown’s promises collide.
Imagine spending thirty years paying for your home or building a farm or business your family intends to pass to the next generation. You followed the rules. You registered your ownership. You paid your taxes. You relied on the government’s records.Then you discover the certainty you were led to believe you had is no longer assured. This is not hypothetical, it is happening now in Richmond and could happen to you elsewhere in B.C. and Canada.
So what’s to be done and who should do it?
Private citizens should not be expected to solve constitutional conflicts that are centuries-in-the-making. They did not create the problem, and they should not be left to bear its consequences.
Time reconsider constitutional protection for property
Which leads to another uncomfortable reality: the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms does not contain a general constitutional guarantee of private property. When Canada adopted the Constitution Act, 1982, private property was considered for inclusion in the Charter, but ultimately left out.
The time has come to reconsider that decision.
A constitutional protection need not prevent governments from regulating land, collecting taxes, building infrastructure or expropriating land for the greater public good. But it could establish a basic constitutional floor—lawful property ownership should not be fundamentally extinguished without clear legal authority and fair compensation.
Constitutional protections could be the answer or maybe another mechanism would be better. But our governments must act—and they must act now. Doing nothing is itself a decision and it leaves ordinary Canadians carrying the uncertainty.
With the security of the Land Title Act now in doubt, government cannot ask Canadians to simply wait and see what happens next. It must proactively resolve the weakness before even one more Canadian is harmed.
Canadians should not have to wait until their own home, farm or livelihood is threatened. The time to strengthen a foundation is before it cracks beneath someone’s feet, not after the walls and roof have collapsed in on them.
Ultimately, the Crown’s authority relies upon the confidence citizens place in the legal orders administered in its name. If we can’t trust the Crown to uphold the basic and fundamental right to own property without encumbrance, the government risks losing the trust of Canadians in the rule of law, its institutions, and democracy itself.
Because one broken promise may lead to another, and if the Crown is above the law, where does that leave the rest of us?
Note: On Mar. 11, Pouce Coupe became the first municipality in British Columbia to call on the provincial government protect private property and be more transparent in negotiations with Indigenous groups. Read the resolutions by councillor James Wall and mayor Danielle Veach.