Canada’s Forgotten Landlords
Canada’s history of Indigenous landgrabs reveal how colonial treaties reshaped sovereignty, ownership, and justice across generations.
Learning from the Land
Every map of Canada tells only part of the truth. The maps showing our provinces and territories hide hundreds of Indigenous nations that predate the country itself. These nations, each distinct in language, culture, and governance, shaped this land long before European settlement. Nonetheless, the history of how their territories became privatized under the Crown remains one of the least understood chapters in Canada’s history.
To understand who we are as Canadians, we must understand the process through which Indigenous land was absorbed, divided, and sold, often under treaties written in another language, another worldview.
The Birth of a Colonial System
When the British Crown began formalizing relationships with Indigenous nations, the notion of private land ownership was alien to many of these communities. Land was a living inheritance shared among generations, not a commodity to be bought or sold. The arrival of colonial settlers turned land into assets that were recognized with titles.
After Confederation in 1867, the federal government established what became known as the “Numbered Treaties”. Spanning from Ontario to the Prairies and into the North, these agreements were presented as negotiations but often functioned as instruments of acquisition in bad faith. While there had been earlier treaties in Eastern Canada and Quebec, the numbered system created a unified, bureaucratic approach that would allow the Crown to expand westward under a single legal and administrative model.
This move led to the Red River and North-West Rebellions, when the Metis and several First Nations communities resisted the encroachment of White settlers and the railroad. Ottawa’s response was to offer nominal payments, food rations, or agricultural equipment in exchange for vast tracts of Indigenous land via treaties. These treaties functioned as tools to prevent further Indigenous unrest and to secure land for the railway and settler colonies.
The Exception of British Columbia
British Columbia’s situation remains one of the most complex. Unlike the Prairie provinces, BC never completed a comprehensive treaty process. Many Indigenous communities in what is now British Columbia were decimated by disease, such as smallpox, soon after European contact. From the colonial-settler perspective, entire nations seemed to vanish within a season, which led them to claim the land outright in the absence of visible survivors.
As surviving First Nations regrouped, their territorial claims began to overlap, reflecting both historical boundaries and new patterns of survival. Modern land disputes and related legal issues in BC are often because of this legacy. Recent court decisions, some thousands of pages long, attempt to clarify ownership, but each ruling tends to raise as many questions as it answers. In one case near Richmond, conflicting claims between First Nations and municipal authorities have sparked public confusion and conspiracy. These legal disputes are the result of the province’s failure to recognize or formalize Indigenous sovereignty.
The Kanesatake and the Wet’suwet’en Resistance
The 1990 Oka Crisis in Quebec stands as another defining moment. The town of Oka sought to expand a golf course onto land claimed by the Mohawk people of Kanesatake, a site that included a sacred burial ground. The Mohawk Nation resisted, erecting barricades and arming themselves when local police attempted to force their removal.
The standoff lasted seventy-eight days. One Quebec officer was killed, and the Canadian Army was deployed to defuse the crisis. In the end, the golf course expansion was cancelled, and the incident forced a national conversation about Canada, Quebec Separatists and the Indigenous Nations. For the first time, many Canadians confronted the fact that Indigenous sovereignty was an ongoing question around justice, history, and racism.
A more recent example of Indigenous resistance is the Wet’suwet’en standoff. In northern British Columbia, the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan opposed a pipeline project that crossed their unceded territory. The community asserted that their land was never surrendered, and thus no external authority had the right to enforce corporate access.
When community members blocked access roads built on their sovereign land, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police intervened. The resulting images of heavily armed officers, with Trudeau’s approval, entering snowy forest camps shocked Canadians. For many Canadians, it was the first time they had seen the reality of what “unceded territory” means. The Wet’suwet’en conflict makes us wonder whether Canada could override Indigenous laws and institutions that predate the country.
A Country Built on Treaties
Canada’s political existence depends on treaties, though most Canadians know little about them. Our current land acknowledgements symbolically reaffirm that the land we live on is Indigenous territory and subject to their respective agreements.
The “Indigenous Map of Canada” presents a mosaic of nations, each with its own laws, lands, and histories. It reminds us that Canada is not a finished project but an ongoing negotiation between people and nations. The privatization of Indigenous land was a centuries-long process that continues to shape housing, development, and reconciliation.
Learning from this history means understanding that Indigenous peoples are not “beneficiaries” of state generosity but actual landlords of a shared home we have all come to inhabit. Canadians must educate themselves on the treaties that govern their regions, support Indigenous land stewardship, and challenge political narratives that treat sovereignty as a historical footnote.
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Again, another commentary that completely ignores any reference to the Maritime Provinces which actually were the founders of the “Canadian Project”. They eventually attracted Quebec and Ontario and the move westward created what we now call Canada. Re treaties with First Nations, east of Quebec I do not believe there are any. The Crown had agreements with the tribes they had encountered (Migmaw and Maliseet) and these were in effect as Confederation expanded westward, and remained unaltered. But they were never given the status of ‘treaties’. Like BC, NB,NS’& PEI acknowledge that they exist on ‘unceded territory’.
At one point, Î was asked to review the early legal decisions forming the background to thé Oka dispute. This led me to the transcripts of the British Privy Council decision in 1911 Î think, then the highest court of appeal for Canada at the time. I read the submission by the Chiefs and was struck by the language. It was exactly the same as the language used by the folks on the barricades in 1990. Thé takeaway for me was that these issues do not go away - life lesson. We need to take these issues seriously and reach honourable agreements. I do not think there has been a resolution to the Oka issue.