Problems on Property: (Re)Making Canada | An Open Legal Coursebook

Wowkwis

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Writing and speaking about Indigenous Peoples in legal contexts #

Kelti McGloin, a JD student at the Schulich School of Law, and Professor Naiomi Metallic have created an excellent guide called Best Practices for Writing About Indigenous Peoples in the Canadian Legal Context. If some of the terminology in this context is unfamiliar to you, you can use this guide as a reference for in class discussions and in your written work throughout the year.

Wolastoqey and MTI Title Claims

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Facts #

In recent years, two separate original Statements of Claim have been filed by Wolastoqey and Mi’gmaq Nations asserting title–under the Anglo-Canadian doctrine of “Aboriginal Title”–to large, overlapping territories in New Brunswick. Based on an initial review of key excerpts from those two claims, this week’s problem asks you to analyze the historical contributions of Canadian law to the current reality of settler colonialism that both cases attempt to confront.

GMOs

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

Hypothetical Facts #

A farmer grows heritage sweet corn on a small acreage. They market the corn as GMO-free and sell it at a local farmers’ market at a premium price (around $1/ear more than other varieties). Each year, the farmer carefully cultivates, collects and stores seed from a portion of their crop to plant the following season.

One of the neighboring farm properties has recently been purchased from a retiring farmer named Hatfield by the nearby agricultural college to use as an experimental site for developing new corn varieties. Some of those new varieties are Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) designed for features such as disease resistance. Over the years, research into GMO corn and other crops has become a lucrative source of income for the college–especially in those instances where it has acquired patent rights to the exclusive reproduction and use of the varieties it has developed. The college plans to employ over fifty people from the surrounding community in various roles at its new experimental site.

A Letter to the Prime Minister

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

In 1944, Toyo Takahashi, a Japanese Canadian woman, wrote the following letter to Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, protesting the forced sale of her home in Victoria, British Columbia under the wartime legal regime that had emerged to dispossess Japanese Canadians of their property and “liquidate” their belongings:¹

Dear Sir:

The Director of the Office of the Custodian in Vancouver has notified us of your policy of liquidation of Japanese property. Because of this policy my property has now been catalogued for sale. This liquidation is against your promises, and my wishes, furthermore it is utterly undeserved.