Land ownership problems

The front pages (of newspapers and news websites) are screaming with horror stories about attacks on democracies around the globe, and Canada is not exempt from these political disasters.

We are supposed to have been “liberated” from our colonial ties and political systems, but our politicians, including our indigenous leaders, are all fighting evolution, denying us our human right to fair and democratic governance, insisting we continue to live in our colonial past. Ownership and land-use have become insurmountable challenges.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, B.C. Premier John Horgan, and the courts randomly use land, royalties, and our tax dollars to dilute and delay resolutions to an ever-growing mountain of claims for occupancy and use of land, while reminding us we are on unceded lands, insinuating our fee simple title and ownership may have little if any value.

A rational, logical, and more compelling process would be to open the doors for all Canadians to participate in national forums to find sustainable, long-term solutions that will resolve and provide desperately needed closure for these issues.

At the same time, off-shore and laundered money have super-inflated the price of land, closing the doors for working Canadians to become home-owners, forcing them into high density, anti-social sky-scrapers our politicians have the audacity to call “affordable” housing.

Adding insult to injury, (the federal government) removed millions of workers from the Canadian workforce with massive injections of CERB money, and is still keeping a lot of them away with “super-CERB” money—the CRB or Canada Recovery Benefit.

At the same time, our borders are left wide-open for immigrants from all corners of the world to fill those vacancies. But the study-guide for citizenship does not tell them the truth about land use, occupancy, and ownership, and many have already left.

Andy Thomsen, Kelowna