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SHEILA GUNN REID | Did the Cowichan land ruling get it wrong? Michelle Stirling breaks down the case shaking B.C. property rights
00:35:26
A landmark British Columbia court decision has sent shockwaves through the province’s property system, and now investigative writer Michelle Stirling is asking a blunt question: was the Cowichan case wrongly decided? Listen to audio-only versions of RebelNews+ exclusive shows like the daily Ezra Levant Show, the Gunn Show, and audio versions of our DAILY livestreams along with other Rebel News long-form videos and interviews.
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- [00:00]
A
What if I told you that the Cowichan decision was founded. No, let me try that again. What if I told you that the B.C. land claims decision was based on documents that nobody has? I'm Sheila Gunn Reid and you're watching the Gun. I want to read to you something that was written by my friend and the guest on the show today, Michelle Sterling. This is what she wrote. And just to preface this, Michelle herself is not a Christian, but boy, does she ever advocate hard for us. She says Canada was founded as a Christian nation. Surely Christians, of which there are some 20 million, here should be the first line of defense of our country and our history. Surely Christians must not accept guilt and participate in accepting heinous, unproven accusations of genocide as a fact, thus becoming supporters of bearing false witness. I hope that people will advocate for an inquiry into the many issues that are obviously wrong with the whole 215 story and the way that Undrip was rammed through Parliament because of the Kamloops ban's atrocity propaganda, that is from her substack, wherein she calls on Christians to be brave and to stand in truth against unproven accusations that they participated in an historical genocide with regard to residential schools and more specifically with the claims that 215 bodies of dead children were discovered at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. And I should note that not one body has been found yet. Michelle also did a recent video wherein she walks through Nina Green's research around documents related to the ruling that gave title to the Cowichan Band over vast tracks of real estate in British Columbia. I'll let Michelle explain. I'll button it up. Here she is. So joining me now is good friend of the show, Michelle Sterling, in another capacity than you normally see her. She's here today as an independent researcher, writer, and I think amateur historian, particularly when it comes to the issue of Canada's Indigenous peoples and. And residential schools and the treatment of Indigenous peoples by the Canadian state. And I wanted to have Michelle on the show today to discuss a couple of things that she's done very recently. And one of them was a video where she read the research of another independent researcher, Nina Green, on the flaws in the Cowichan ruling that have now thrown private property rights into chaos in parts of British Columbia. So, Michelle, thanks so much for coming on the show. Hopefully you can walk us through this. Some of the holes in the ruling by Madame Justice Young on the Cowichan ruling.
- [04:02]
B
Thank you. Well, yes, Nina prefers not to be on camera, so I'm kind of acting as a narrator for her work. So I do request that people refer directly to her work because I'll be paraphrasing some of it in our discussion here. And these are rather complex legal arguments. So I'm not speaking from the point of view of a lawyer, and I didn't do the original research, but you'd be able to see all of the original research in her work, which is posted on woke. Watch for the written document. And I've also got links posted on my substack. So with that preface, let's look at what happened in the couch and ruling. So one thing that's very interesting that I must say right off the top, is last August, Madame Justice Young granted the couch and Aboriginal title over basically the whole city of Richmond based on historic claims. And, you know, just a couple of weeks ago, the federal government granted the Musqueam Aboriginal title over all of pretty much Vancouver, including Richmond. So, you know, there's already a conflict. Yeah, an overlapping interest, overlapping claims, and both are based on oral histories. So the documents thus become very, very, very important. The existing documents, such as they are, the historical documents, become very, very important in determining what actually happened, you know, 150 years ago and who said what, what was promised and what not. So if we look at the Cowichan ruling, one of the key references was Sir James Douglas, 1853 journal. And Madam Justice Young relied on this journal to establish what is known as the honor of the Crown. And people can look up the honor of the Crown and find out what that really means on the constitutional studies site. Just to give you a bit of an overview here, it's a constitutional principle fundamental to Aboriginal law, and it's not a written rule, but it's a concept developed by the judiciary based on British notions of noblesse. So according to the Supreme Court of Canada, the concept's role in Aboriginal law dates back to the Royal Proclamation of 1763 that states that the Indigenous people live under the Crown's protection. And that's in quotes there. And so this concept took on new life with the Court's interpretations of sex Section 35 of the Constitution act in 1982, which recognizes and affirms the constitutional status of existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal people of Canada. So when you invoke the honor of the Crown, it characterizes a special relationship between the Crown and the subject people. So it's kind of a fiduciary relationship here. And so once this is invoked, it means that the. The Crown is obliged to treat Aboriginal people fairly honorably and protect them from exploitation. So those are just some excerpts from. From that constitutional studies page, just to give you a sense of what this means. So she relied on Sir James Douglas 1853 Journal to Establish that honor of the crown. But that journal has been missing since 1878. So the actual journal does not exist. There are some writings about it also from that early time, but the actual journal does not exist, and that was not mentioned in the case. So, you know, in. You can imagine, if I take a book that you wrote of something that happened at. At a particular time and place, I might interpret or reinterpret what you said in a somewhat different way. So unless we have your original book, no one really knows what you said at that time. They only know what I said in writing about what you said. So that's a very important aspect of this. And there is also the fact that because she relied on this journal, which is not in existence, she came up with the concept of justice and humanity, claiming that Douglas had promised to treat the Cowichan with justice and humanity. But in fact. Oh, and she mentions it 17 times in the ruling and mentions honor of the crown 100 times in the ruling. So it's all reliant on this diary that does not exist anymore. Now, Lieutenant Morsby has an eyewitness account which he. Which does exist, and he disputes that. That he spoke. That Douglas spoke to the Cowichan in English. He spoke to them actually in Chinook. And Chinook is kind of a trade jargon. It's about 700 word vocabulary. And so abstract concepts like justice and humanity are not part of that vocabulary. And also, she claims that he invoked the name of Queen Victoria when Moresby says that he was actually talking about King George and not Queen Victoria. So, you know, this is quite problematic. And another problem with this ruling is that she relies on Lieutenant Amelia Simpson's original manuscript chart of the lower Fraser river, and that was used to establish the location of the Cowichan village. But this chart was delivered to the Hudson Bay company's archives in England, and then it was passed on to another mapping company and never returned. So again, it doesn't. The original doesn't exist. And in the ruling, she suggests that Simpson and Barnston. Let me just check this here. Had. Had recorded the toppan in Cowichan villages spelled C o, w, I, T, c, E, C, h, e, n, and three clusters of six rectangles along the north bank of the south arm. Now, the problem is that she speaks to this Simpson sketch in paragraph 773, as though the document introduced into evidence was Simpson's original manuscript chart. But the Huds Bay Company archives in Winnipeg indicate that the original manuscript chart was lost more than a century ago. And the fact that she refers to Barnston and Simpson is a, I think, a fabrication because according to the Hudson Bay Company records, they were only. This chart was only attributed to, to Lieutenant Simpson alone and not a collaboration. So that perhaps means that there may be a different chart that Barnston touched up. I don't know. Or, or that she, Madame Justice Young, is, you know, sort of fabricating a notion based on available evidence, but it's not the actual evidence that supports this case. So, you know, you can read the whole narrative that Nina put together on Woke Watch Canada and all of the details are there. So like I said, it's a very complex issue because this is all based on legalese and, and evidence of 150or more years ago that, you know, we don't, we don't have access to the original documents now. And that's a problem. That was another problem that, that Nina brought up in another document that she wrote earlier where one of the key map makers in the Cowichan decision. Let me just find that fellow's name had passed away. He was a contemporary map maker and geographer and historian, but he had passed away before the trial, so he couldn't be cross examined about the map that was presented. And the map that he presented showed a very large indigenous village along the shore. But the historic map in the Tretch survey shows only two small teepees, not a large location at all. So let me just find that fellow's name. So anyway, as you see, there are many, many questions. And a thing that Nina has also pointed out is that these Aboriginal title cases are being filed without any citations for the historical documents, citations and sources. So it's very difficult for other people to go and check. Well, you know, is that a real source? Is it reliable? So that's the essence of the arguments
- [15:03]
A
here, you know, and I think that's what's missing in all of this is that the, there's no understanding of this judge's ruling and the fact that it's relying on documents that really don't exist anymore and nobody knows where they are.
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B
Yeah, I mean, some do exist, but not these ones. And if these are the essential ones for establishing the honor of the Crown, which then invokes section 35, then, you know, these documents must be the originals or we cannot rely on that.
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A
Yeah. And yet hundreds of people's property rights, property values, mortgages are thrown into chaos here.
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B
That's right. Yeah. And so, you know, there has to be new trial. That's the only way.
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A
Yeah, I. I believe so too. My concern is that the B.C. government is not going to push for that, intervene for that. This is just something that happened to these homeowners in the background while they didn't even really know what was going on.
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B
Yes, they were never notified that this trial was in process. I think it was in process for about a decade. They were never notified of it. And they also don't have joint representation. I mean, as individuals, nobody has the money to go after these guys. I mean, for instance, when you look at how Section 35 itself got incorporated as it is today, you can look at the. I think it's the ninth annual convention of the International Funders for Indigenous People. And at that event, Jack Woodward spoke about this trial and he said that it, when they started, they didn't have a dime, but it ended up costing $15 million. And the money came in, he said, we don't know from where. And he said that they had, I think it was 37 law students and 40 lawyers on this case to make the change for section 35.
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A
It's a lot of resources out of nowhere.
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B
That's right. So, you know, ordinary people don't have those kind of resources. We also know that some of the major tar sands campaign funders were involved in some of these issues as well. So, you know, and that's what the International Funders for Indigenous People. You'll find some of the names of the big funders there as well. So, you know, there are lots of questions about that. And these people, the individuals, don't have the resources to pursue this now. And I also think that the government itself, the federal government and the B.C. government is compromised because UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, was passed in June of 2021, less than a month after the Kamloops Band claimed to have found 215 dead children in the apple orchard. So that claim really rammed UNDRIP through Parliament. And UNDRIP states in Article 26, in essence, that all the land that was once territory of Native people is their land and that the government should facilitate making that happen. So what I'm saying is because UNDRIP is now kind of an umbrella law over Canada, then perhaps the federal and provincial governments are compromised in any effort that they might want to take to help citizens and taxpayers retain their private property rights.
- [19:15]
A
Right. A compromise or at least deeply conflicted on this issue, given they passed that. Now, I want to talk to you about your efforts to encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ in the Catholic Church to be brave in the face of. Of allegations of abuse and genocide that occurred at Canada's residential schools. And I watched your talk that you gave at Southside Victory Church on what you've described, and I think rightly so, the spiritual and physical war for Canada with regard to the untruths and lack of evidence around claims, particularly around the Kamloops. 215.
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B
Yes. Well, you know, the problem is I, like, I'm not a Catholic, but I can't stand seeing the Oblate priests and the gray nuns and all the dedicated people who gave most of their lives to these children being so defamed posthumously. And I can't stand seeing the churches accepting this sense of guilt for things that they did not do. Were there some people harmed at these schools? Yes, but the number is proportionately very small. I think there were 31 people over the course of 113 years who were charged with any kind of abuse against the children. And of those, I think there's like, one priest, one lay minister and two nuns who were charged and convicted for administering a toxic substance. You know what it was? Castor oil, which, you know, most kids used to get once a week to, you know, keep them healthy. I think it was castor oil. It might have been fish oil, but that's before we had vitamin D pills anyway. So what I'm saying is that, yes, some people were harmed, but it's not on the massive scale of a genocide. People keep talking about the genocide in Canada. No one has ever been charged or convicted of genocide in relation to Indian residential schools. And furthermore, even the Canadian Human Rights Museum, Canadian Museum of Human Rights, has adopted this claim of genocide against aboriginal people. And when a fundamental human right of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is presumption of innocence and a fair trial, neither of those things are happening. So, yes, I would like to see the Catholic and other Christian denominations stand up and say, we are not guilty, because they're not. The system was set up by the federal government. The churches happen to have missionaries in place across the country. And those missionaries had very good relationships with the native people. So that was how that network was set up. And it was set up not to strip Indian people of their heritage. It was set up as a just transition. It was set up to help those children learn how to be part of the new society. And it wasn't a Surprise. You know, I think. Was it 1886? I can't remember. The year Don Smith wrote an article about the chief's journey and how a number of west Western chiefs went by train to the east. They toured the Mohawk Institute. They had students give presentations there, and they realized that, yes, this would be an effective way to teach our young people. And even Chief Red Crow, you know what he said about residential schools? He said, it's like a brave going off to. To hunt. You know, you're separated from your family for a time, but you come back with a prize. And the prize in the hunt is the deer or buffalo or elk or whatever it is that you. You claim is your trophy for hunting and the food for the family and the tribe. And the. The. The prize you bring home from school is math, reading, writing, understanding of social norms. So, you know, people keep acting as if children were kidnapped from homes. That's just not the case.
- [23:52]
A
Well. And, you know, if you ask anybody who's sort of just a layperson out on the street who Father Lacombe was, they probably won't know. They might say, oh, isn't he the. The guy that the town was named after? But they don't know who he was or what he did. He was an oblate priest who came from the east because he was dissatisfied with the East. That's the story of so many. Came. Came out here and learned Cree, translated the New Testament into Cree, and then brokered peace between warring indigenous bands. And he, you know, he was there when, you know, with Taskwin. The town with Taskwin is. It translates to the hills where peace was made. And Father Lacombe did that. And yet that legacy has been vilified, erased, and it's just become untouchable. So much of the west was founded by the good works of missionaries who came here to help the indigenous people, but also help the settlers. And it's just been completely erased from our history books. And it's such an important part of our culture. And I'm so glad that you're doing this good work to try to. To fight back against this Christian suicidal empathy feels like.
- [25:23]
B
Yeah, demonization and demoralization. And, you know, there's a new book out called Decolonization and Me. And in. In it, there's. It's Phyllis Webstad and Krista. I can't remember the other author's name. She's Matey, the other author. Anyway, she's talking about the fact that she was horrified that her grandfather and two of his sisters ended up at this Orphanage in Midnapur? Well, it was an orphanage that Father Lacombe set up and he worked very hard to raise the money for it. And then subsequently they ended up at, I think at a hospital in Edmonton. So in the book she's saying how terrible this is and why were they taken from the family? Well, first of all, I don't know if they were taken per se, but the thing is that she mentions there were 15 children in the family, so, you know, many of a lot. That's a lot of children In a time of poverty. So many children ended up at residential schools or orphanages because the families had too many kids to care for. So that happened with, I think, Murray Sinclair, with Chief Wilton, little child. There were 11. He has 11 siblings. So his grandfather was taking care of him. His grandfather probably enrolled him in the Ermine Skin School. And the kids from the school used to go to the grandfather's house and have a picnic on the lawn there. So it really sounds like a genocidal place.
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A
Right, right, right, right. Now, Michelle, I know you're a little bit under the weather and so am I, so can you give us some, a list of resources?
- [27:20]
B
Sure.
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A
Where people who are looking for truth can go to get the facts undistilled and unmolested by the government media.
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B
Well, there's a new book out called Dead Wrong. It's edited by Dr. Tom Flanagan and Chris, and there's a number of different contributors. I'm one of them. And this will give you some insights on residential school history that you will not read in the mainstream press. There's Indian Residential School Records, which is Nina Green's site, and she has posted there, I think, about 500 death certificates of students. And in almost all cases, the death certificates are signed off by a parent or guardian and the child's body was returned home to the reserve. So if people are looking at residential schools for lots of bodies, they're probably finding bodies of your relatives, Sheila, or mine. And another resource is the Indian Residential School Research Group. They have a website as well. Dorchester Review often has articles. That's where Jacques Ruillard's first article came out. A year after Kamloops. Not one body has been found. And that's where Mark Miller thinks that's very, very ghoulish. Well, Professor Ruillard is a very eminent historian and Mark Miller is not a historian. So, you know, it's pretty crazy that Mark Miller is denouncing Professor Ruillard, who's done so much work on this topic, going to original Department of Indian affairs documents and pulling out original numbers. So Mark Miller has probably never been any. Anywhere near any of those files. So, anyway, those are some resources.
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A
Don't forget your own substack.
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B
Oh, of course. Yes, I have a substack. I'm also on Medium and I also have a blog. Well, I have a website, michelle sterling.com. so, yes, you can find things there.
- [29:42]
A
Well, Michelle, thank you so much for your efforts to try to shine a light of truth onto this issue that's clouded by innuendo and false allegations. And as you rightly point out, not one body has been found at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. And frankly, they're not even looking. So thank you for this.
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B
You're welcome. You're welcome. Stand up. Speak up, people.
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A
Yes, exactly. Be brave. We're called to be brave. Let's find our bravery. Thank you.
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B
Do not bear false witness and do not let the lie live through you.
- [30:26]
A
Well, as you know, the last portion of the show belongs to you, our beloved viewer, because without you, there's no Rebel News. We don't take money from the government like the cbc, but also seemingly just about everybody else in the media in this country. So I have to care what you think about the work that we do here at Rebel News. And I would anyway, by the way, don't get it in your head that I just, you know, if we weren't obligated to our viewers for support, that I would just ignore you. I genuinely care if you think that our journalism is moving the needle or speaking to your issues or telling the hard truths that the other media are scared to tell, because I think some of them actually know deep in their bones that some of the things that they're saying aren't accurate, let's say, but they're frightened. They don't want the social stigma of being disliked for saying accurate things or they're just scared about a paycheck. And I don't begrudge them that. People have bills to pay, but I just. I couldn't do it. I couldn't do it anyway. So if you want to write me a letter, let me know what you you think about the work that we do here at Rebel News. My email is sheilaeblenews.com put gun show letters in the subject line so I know why you're emailing me. And also share the clips of the shows with your friends so that they can see the kind of work that we're doing here behind the paywall and encourage them to leave a comment over there. Because I read those comments, too, and as you know, I frequently read those on air. But today's letter comes to me by someone who I think is becoming a pen pal because he always writes viewer feedback, and I appreciate it. It's Bruce from Radway, Alberta, and his little cutie cat, Delta. And he says, oh, and this is on last week's show with Alexa Lavoie. I had Alexa on to talk about the gun culture in Quebec because there was a massive rally in Quebec against Mark Carney and that horrible Gary and Ed Segree's gun grab. And thousands of people turned out, which is great for me as a Westerner to see because so frequently we're like, Quebec. All the bad gun ideas come from Quebec. That's where Paulie Sousuviant is based. You know, the provincial government there collaborates with the federal government on the gun grab. They had their own provincial gun registry for some godforsaken reason after the national one was killed by our beloved Stephen Harper. So you get in your head these stereotypes about Quebec, but gun owners are gun owners everywhere. That's what I learned watching that. And Alexa was on the show to talk about it. And Bruce writes, hi, Sheila. I enjoyed your interview with Alexa Lavoie. It's good to know that gun culture exists there as well as out West. I'm told that taking people to the range, it is true, is a way to change their minds about guns. They'll first, they'll realize how fun they are, and second, they'll realize how seriously we take safety. And that will dispel a couple of myths right off the bat. You take a liberal to the gun range, show them how to use a firearm, show them how seriously we take firearms safety, and all of a sudden the scales will fall away from their eyes. Even if it happens to 50% of liberals, that's still progress, right? I sure would love to go, even though I do favor gun ownership. I know that Bruce is someone who doesn't own a firearm but is a member of gun rights organizations because he cares about property rights. He cares about making sure that those organizations have the money in their coffers to take the government to court to advocate on behalf of licensed firearms owners. And he cares about public safety, as in, why are we spending money attacking people like Sheila when we should be spending money attacking the actual bad guys with illegal firearms who didn't take the arpel course like the rest of us? And then Bruce says, by the way, I love your hair. It looked so good on the Wednesday, Wednesday show. Bruce. Is that a joke? Because I think on the Wednesday show I wore a hat because my hair was being problematic. So, anyways, I appreciate that. I appreciate Bruce for always being a loyal viewer and I appreciate all of the lawyer loyal viewers and supporters out there in the rebel universe. That's the show for today. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll see everybody back here in the same time in the same place next week. And as always, don't let the government tell you that you've had too much to think.