Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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New York, Sydney, San Francisco, and a whole host of cities around the world suffer an epidemic of competing interests that force the art of building places for people to live underground. Vancouver is no exception, but Canada's most expensive city appears to have experimented with a local remedy. Canadian reconciliation efforts have met Vancouver's housing crisis. Vancouverites can now gaze upon three new residential apartment complexes pointed at the heavens, proof that that this salve might successfully provide 6000 desperately needed, approximately market rate approximately waterfront domiciles for the city.
Sen̓áḵw Towers is one of Canada's most ambitious housing developments. The developers avoided typical NIMBY hurdles despite their petty objections over items such as parking spaces, of which the development has none-- a fact popular urban planning enthusiasts on various social media platforms will assert is a good thing. Can a resident take the bus to camp, fish salmon, and experience the stunning Pacific Northwest? See, the trick is that a government with a fiduciary duty to another sovereign can provide land to do that with which the other sovereign will. Any development thereafter lies further outside of the reach of the democratic spoilers. Americans may recognize this as the Indian Casino method. Vancouver needs housing more than it needs a casino, so it builds housing.
Opponents to development become disempowered with this method, or resistance is assuaged by magical incantations in words like indigenous and reconciliation. In Vancouver, The Kits Point Residents' Association provided opposition to development with a grass roots resistance. The KPRA organized, crafted petitions, made the loud noises at council meetings, and took the government to court. In the end the courts said no, the KPRA lost, and the government laid waste to the NIMBY interests. This was not a fair fight.
At $1.4 billion, the Sen̓áḵw Towers project was financed by the biggest federal residential mortgage loan ever provided by the Canadian government. The project involves a 50/50 financial partnership between the Squamish Nation and OP trust-- the former a sovereign ethnic group of 3500 and the latter one of Canada’s largest pension funds. At one hype-building stage the project headlined as Canada's largest "net-zero carbon" residential project. Should residents who prefer quiet neighborhoods to hustle-and-bustle be concerned this arrangement will knock on their door next? Probably not. This particular development is the result of a decades long legal war in Canada that never seems to end. The City of Reconciliation does look forward to a few other ambitious Indigenous developments on reclaimed land, but there should be a limit on the opportunities.
This relationship and system does bring up questions. Is this fair? Is this good? How does it fit into the broader movement of Reconciliation? Understandings of the past and their impact on the present are changing in Canada. Have changed. Court cases remain ongoing and additional ones are filed each year. The foundations of Sen̓áḵw Towers rests on a failure of procedure. Which is fitting, because it has resulted in a liberal proceduralism selectively suspending procedure for similar reasons. How did this happen?
A Squamish Historical Interlude
This history starts with a man who held a title of commissioner. He worked in the service of the Dominion of Canada, traveling around its frontier, and eventually ended up at the coast of the Pacific Northwest. The commissioner had arrived at a piece of land that KPRA members today could identify as Kitsilano. Back in 1877, there were no magnificent towers reflecting ocean hues onto a City of Glass. Instead, the commissioner saw only a few rudimentary domiciles inhabited by 42 men, women, and children-- a fishing village. The commissioner jotted down the tally, wrote "Kitsilano Indian Reserve No. 6" somewhere on a map to mark this approximately waterfront location, and after a few more strokes of the pen back in Ottawa that was that. On behalf of the Dominion of Canada's Indian Affairs, armed by the statute of the 1876 Indian Act, the commissioner had recognized the village of Sen̓áḵw as part of an Indian reservation. The only way to reverse this arrangement was to surrender the territory back to the Crown, the same for all other twenty-eight such Squamish territories. God save the Queen!
Over the course of the next three decades the area surrounding Kitsilano transformed from a frontier patchwork, home to 1000 European ethnics, into a major lumber export and railway hub; Vancouver, population 100,000. Dr. Slobodian, a Canadian sociolegalist, cites evidence as early as 1903 that indicates provincial interest in developing the land under Kitsilano Indian Reserve No. 6. In 1913, this interest had coalesced into a possibly, partly, or totally illegal deal involving British Columbia (B.C.) officials. The officials had finally closed an exchange with the Squamish natives on the land and/or decided to expel them from their homes. Contemporary newsmen got wind of this and dubbed it a controversy. Stories of coercion, treachery, and more flowed from the pen of yellow journalism. The press had a field day.
Journalists wrote how the Squamish were bullied with rumors that the deal was made at the gun point. Others indicated that the Indians were tricked, they told stories of better offers coming down the pipeline that the city's greedy industry moguls wanted to beat to the punch. The papers also wrote of the affair in general terms as an elaborate ruse orchestrated by amoral swindlers. The swindler the newsmen were most interested in was named W.J. Bowser. Bowser was a lawyer paid handsomely out of B.C. coffers to close the deal. Bowser's profession makes me certain of his swindling nature, but we are confident he very likely offered and paid 20 (sometimes said to be 18) Squamish men $11,500 each to facilitate the eviction. This is a sum has a value between 300-400k+ CAD today if you like faulty old-money to new-money conversions. We can also call it a sum that could buy ~300 head of cattle apiece which has an old-money to new-money value of $500,000-1,000,000+ USD.
Indian Moving Day arrived, the 72 Squamish left for nearby reservations, and their homes were demolished. The critical coverage did not end, however. B.C. authorities responded by launching an investigation into themselves that found no wrongdoing. Two years later, in 1916, Liberal politicians took the story to the capital city of Ottawa and lambasted political foes with their own "special committee" investigation. Bowser would go on to argue the 20 men he paid -- considered "elders" or heads of households -- sufficiently represented the interests of the Kitsilano's inhabitants. Bowser continued to claim he had the consent of the reserve, had the consent of the Department of Indian Affairs, and that he never threatened anyone.[2] The Conservatives hoping this would finally go away continued to distance themselves with denials of any involvement in what was now known as a political boondoggle. The Squamish of Vancouver didn't find any relief, restitution, or admissions of guilt from any of this contemporary political theater.
The Squamish population moved on and recovered through the 20th century. The white man's plague, prejudice, and displacement that contributed to their near extinction retreated into history. These natives, in turn, organized. By the end of the 1970s, the Squamish connected with a growing legal movement among Indigenous groups which sought compensation over land deals in B.C. and elsewhere in Canada. In 1979, a Squamish Chief and "language Knowledge Keeper" testified to the Squamish's collective memory or "oral history" of the deal that took place more than six decades prior.
Assuming the Chief's testimony was truthful, the 20 Squamish men understood the land they were paid for could not be sold. 300 head of cattle apiece was simply too good to bother involving other authorities to verify this transaction. This was not their problem, anyway. Perhaps it was even a joke. Before picking up the money and leaving their ancestral homes some old fart might have said, "Let the white man burden this," except, better than a burden, these elders had inadvertently created a cause. A cause which lasted well past Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's oversight of Canada's "patriation" or separation from the British Crown in 1982. In the new Millennium, the Vancouver area Squamish would finally win their first largesse as compensation for the Kitsilano scandal, a $92.5 million settlement was wired over. Later, the settlement would include a Y shaped strip of land where Sen̓áḵw Towers stand today.
1. THE KITSILANO SCANDAL:The Destruction of Sená̓ḵw as Told in Local Newspapers, 1913–16.
[2] I would be remiss if I did not mention another hiccup on behalf of sociolegalist Dr. Solobodian. If we were to accept negotiations were reasonably good faith and the DIA gave its approval then the deal could still be illegitimate. No matter the nature of negotiations or type of coercion nobody thought to include the female inhabitants of the land in the process. In her eyes a sale without their consent is moot on grounds of human rights.
"Kill the Indian, Save the Man"
My recounting was abbreviated and somewhat charitable to the then-government of British Columbia. As mentioned, this story became foundational for one movement that became part of a group of movements. These movements led to interests, power, money, governance, and now housing projects. Reconciliation.
This is a quote that comes from the newest generation of Squamish councilmember and spokesperson Khelsilem Sxwchálten or Dustin Rivers. In a March 20th essay he responds to increasing criticism, discontent, and skepticism of Indigenous development and Canada's Reconciliation project.
The piece is a blast of buckshot. Each shell is loaded with a nice enough liberal shibboleth pressed against other pellets of realist statements. All of it is tightly packed with what feels like a wad of threats aimed down range at the white man. There are a couple pitiful arguments of mutual beneficence in the essay, though not any that read as compelling to myself. To me, it reads more like a declaration for how Canadians have lost in specific, but important ways. The Squamish spokesperson seems to want to say the pain of this defeat will be commiserate with the level of compliance. He is angry, outraged, and righteous. This is how it's going to work.
The use of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion as an example of a project that could have gone better if only certain parties were more forthright is interesting. Some may recall the story. Near the start of the 2010s the pipeline started as an ambitious commercial venture with an estimated price tag of a $7 billion. Over the course of its development the Indigenous-environmentalist axis increased efforts to impose costs on the project. Partly to save the planet, oppose oil, and so on, but arguably also to extract rent. These groups called for more environmental reviews, more Indigenous consultations, and more dialogue. By 2018, the company threw up its hands and cited a fiduciary responsibility to call it quits on the ordeal. Prime Minister Trudeau sensed opportunity in the disaster or felt he had no other choice, so Trudeau declared the government's expertise in mediation would save the project in the public's interest. The government of Canada would finish the pipeline. In response to immeasurably deeper pockets, the opposition quintupled their efforts and the government, a more expert negotiator, agreed to many expensive concessions. The TMX grew from a major to massive financial blackhole. The kind of blackhole that only a government can manage and the type that the Anglosphere seems to be managing more often.
Proper consent for the TMX came priced at a minimum floor of $5 billion in direct payoffs to various Indigenous groups with additional hundreds of millions to billions spent on Indigenous suppliers and contractors for 69 Indigenous communities. This is representative of Indigenous power to extract rent from economic projects. Dustin Rivers goes on.
The UN Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) was recommended by the Human Rights Council in 2007. UNDRIP is a general sort of charter for general kinds of rights for general types of Indigenous peoples around the world. Last year, B.C.'s Court of Appeal found that the province must account for UNDRIP in the context of the province's mineral claims regime. Any miner staking a claim on shared or contested territory must see the Crown negotiate with the other claimants, the Indigenous. This is part of the court's finding of a "minimum standard" when creating an interpretative framework for the application of law.
As I understand this is the way of common law findings, but the creeping ambiguity feeds an uncertainty described by Dustin as a "panic". What might the future hold and by what limitations can Canadians hold the future to it? This is representative of Indigenous interests to wield rights-based frameworks to exert power.
This is not the language of a noble victim. Any victor may find themselves forced to dictate similar terms to a populace whose rulers were foolish enough to lose. While change may bring anxiety or financial loss to certain areas of the Mediterranean, it really is best we all find a way to acclimate to the new arrangement, the Roman envoy said to Mediterranean-adjacent society #31. Dustin lives in the post-national future of Canada. Dr. Slobodian, sociolegalist, wrote how Vancouver's expansion in Kitsilano Indian Reserve No. 6 was inevitable not due to economics, but because the white settler knows little else but his desire to manifest destiny. After the last promise comes the news that a new deal is required. This, I think, is a valid concern, but I don't share Dr. Solobodian's view it is particular to the white man.
Phase one, the legal framework, of the reconciliation process was built and phase two is well under way. A small but entrenched patronage network led by an native elite empowered, if not chosen, by Canadian courts. Most of those leaders represent a number of people that would constitute a small, rural town of people. The roots of the network grow into as many systems and financial streams as Canadian courts will tolerate. At one time it was the British Crown, at another British Columbia's Attorney General, and prior to that it was the Canadian Pacific Railway paving the way for progress. Now it is Khelsilem Tl'aḵwasiḵ̓an Sxwchálten's turn to declare, Progress.
In America, we hand over the rights to build an Indian casino, raise a social welfare payment, or sick an NGO on a specific problem to raise awareness. Canada has something of a real post-national effort in its commitment to reconcile with the indigenous. Power in Canada is aligned with this sort of understanding in a way that selfish, uncultured, uncaring Americans could never match. Perhaps the Europeans are right. This is what a refined culture is like, and us Americans can never know it unless we suffer in the correct ways.
A government once paid a fair price to a few dozen people for land and sent them packing. Another government paid a much greater lump sum for procedural flaws of the government before. Now Canada includes the ponderance of questions such as, 'What is the best way to give away 40% of a city?'
NobodyCaresAnymoreism Source
As for other evidence of patronage roots growing deep, take the $18 million dollars dished out to three First Nation tribes received with the World Cup coming to the continent, because... well, actually no one really knows why. While a couple second-rate outlets reported this payoff nobody has bothered to follow-up or press officials for answers. Nobody -- not any who are in a position to matter -- cares. When FIFA brings the World Cup to the country the First Nations get their cut. As Dustin implies in his essay, this is how it is.
If you'd like to read an overview of Canadian anxieties around these issue, there is at least one man who does care. David Frum wrote "Good Intentions Gone Bad" in December 2025. The Squamish leader mentions The Atlantic's house-conservative by name in his own essay. Among other things, Frum points to a massive increase over Trudeau's term in annual spending on Indigenous causes-- $32 billion a year, settlements notwithstanding, without a commiserate increase in Indigenous welfare. Frum doesn't mention the Squamish project in Vancouver, but Dustin Rivers correctly sensed a directional criticism. He responds to a piece that focuses on the result of Cowichan Tribes v. Canada. That would be the B.C .Supreme Court's ruling which cast further doubt on property rights in the province with relation to shared Indigenous ownership.
I'm surprised there's not already effort post on the Cowichan ruling here. For the purpose of this post, B.C.'s ruling (it's long) found in favor of the Cowichan Nation, some 5000 Indigenous members, by granting them 40% of the land they claimed around Richmond, BC, a small city of a 200k. The ruling complicated English legal tradition and Canada's fee simple land titles. I won't cover it, just know this is the reason so many counter-messaging essays have come out to tamp down on panic over property rights. Understandably, fiddling with property rights has freaked many people out about the future. As for the Cowichan ruling, every party involved is appealing. Cowichan is appealing, because they didn't get all the land they asked for. Other tribes are appealing, because Cowichan claims overlap with their own. Richmond and B.C. appeal for obvious reasons, like they don't want to complicate property ownership for their taxpayers, and they don't know what an arrangement with Aboriginal title actually means. These questions haven't stopped the decision from inviting new litigation by other tribes in other places. What did the ruling say, in practice? Allow me to pithily paraphrase:
There is a substantial section in the ruling where the court defines what Oral History is and how much weight they give it as evidence. Oral history is a term to categorize generational stories for peoples who use stories in lieu of record keeping. In the Cowichan case the court relied on existing precedent to place oral history in what they determined is a reasonable evidentiary standard box. In short, oral history in B.C. courts is not the same thing as documentary evidence. Documents can contradict or overcome oral history, although the same can happen in reverse. B.C.'s highest court continues to find that oral history is higher quality evidence than other more widely popular modes of communication, like common storytelling around a campfire. If no documentary evidence exists and my testimony is put up against an oral history of an entire people, who the court believes to be more credible, then I'm pretty sure a B.C. court would say I am toast with the qualification that, as responsible jurists, they'd only do so reasonably with context accounted for.
Were I a Canadian, Dustin's essay would inflame rather than discourage my anxieties around property rights in B.C. and Canada at large. He represents what I see a type of insular, hostile elite Canadians haven't had a chance to meet and fully understand.
This has been gathering dust in the words, words, words vault so I'm dumping it. I had hoped to chop it up somehow for the CW thread and I did return to it on more than one occasion with some success, but in the end I feel it is too long and not cohesive enough to benefit that thread. Someone may find inspiration and translate some part of it for me. It is technically an international story (I am not Canadian) and recent-ish.
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