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Aboriginal Title, Private Property Interests, And Statutes Of Limitation, Kent Mcneil

All Papers

A major unresolved issue in Canadian law is the status of third-party interests that were allegedly created on Aboriginal title lands in non-treaty areas of Canada. The legal validity of these interests could depend on when and where they were granted by the Crown. Pre-Confederation Crown grants would have been subject to the Royal Proclamation of 1763 and to the limited authority delegated to colonial governments, but not to the division of powers in the Constitution Act, 1867, whereas post-Confederation grants would be subject to the latter. Grants after, but not before, April 17, 1982, would be subject to the …

A Relational Approach To Property, Jennifer Nedelsky

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Creating Indigenous Property: Power, Rights, And Relationships, F. Tim Knight

Librarian Publications & Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Legal Relations Of ‘Private’ Forests: Making And Unmaking Private Forest Lands On Vancouver Island, Estair Van Wagner

All Papers

While the vast majority of forestlands in Canada are considered ‘Crown land’, there are key areas of private forestland. On private land the incidents of fee simple ownership mean the owner emerges as land use decision maker – the “agenda setter” for the land. Yet a richer set of legal relations exists in these forests.

Indigenous legal orders derived from an enduring relationship with the land and place also govern forestlands. Using the case of the Esquimalt and Nanaimo Railway lands in British Columbia, this article explores the intersection between historical and contemporary human-forest relations upheld by Anglo-Canadian law and …

Notes From The Periphery: Finding More Than (Non)Ownership In Property Law?, Estair Van Wagner

Articles & Book Chapters

Property law structures the way we make decisions about how we live together and with the world around us. In doing so, it shapes, but is also shaped by, our relationships with the places we inhabit and encounter. Traditionally, non-owners are defined by their distance and exclusion from the primary legal relationship and their lack of enforceable interests. Yet, land use conflicts continue to arise because people routinely assert relationships with land and resources that they are not formally recognised as owning but with which they are deeply entangled. This chapter touches briefly on three examples: the relations of Indigenous …

A Colonial Castle: Defence Of Property In R V Stanley, Alexandra Flynn, Estair Van Wagner

Articles & Book Chapters

In 2016, Gerald Stanley shot 22-year-old Colten Boushie in the back of the head after Boushie and his friends entered Stanley’s farm. Boushie died instantly. Stanley relied on a hangfire defence, rooted in the defence of accident, and was found not guilty by an all-white jury. Throughout the trial, Stanley invoked concerns about trespass and rural crime (particularly property crime) that raised much evidence of limited relevance to whether or not the shooting was an accident. We argue that the assertions of trespass, without formerly raising the defence of property or trespass, shaped the trial by providing a racist, anti-Indigenous-tinged …

Book Review: Angela Fernandez, Pierson V. Post, The Hunt For The Fox: Law And Professionalization In American Legal Culture, Jennifer Nadler

Articles & Book Chapters

No abstract provided.

Land Development & Commercial Real Estate Problems (Volume Ii): 2018-19, Morton G. Gross

Osgoode Course Casebooks

Course number: 5160.03

Land Development & Commercial Real Estate Problems (Volume I): 2018-19, Morton G. Gross

Osgoode Course Casebooks

Course number: 5160.03

The Place Of Private Property In Land Use Law: A Relational Examination Of Ontario's Quarry Conflicts, Estair Suarez Van Wagner

PhD Dissertations

Land use law structures the way we make decisions about how we live together and with the world around us. In doing so, it shapes our relationships not only with the people around us, but with the places we inhabit and encounter. This dissertation examines how land use law structures the relations between people and the more-than-human world to uphold the ownership model of property relations and to privilege particular forms of land use. Through documentary and interview-based qualitative research, it presents an eco-relational examination of one of the most contentious land uses in Ontario aggregate mineral extraction.

The primacy …

The Philosopher And The Developer: Pluralist Moral Theory And The Law Of Condominium, Jason Leslie

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

This paper analyzes the evolving law of condominium from the perspective of the moral philosophy of property, focusing in particular on neo-Aristotelian value or pluralist ethics. By combining aspects of traditional property law, corporate law, and municipal politics, condominium provides a flexible tool for ownership and private land use planning. Condominium, however, also poses novel and unique challenges to both legal doctrine and the very meaning of private property. After describing and comparing the pluralist approach to moral philosophy of property and the approach of its main rivals—deontology and utilitarianism—the paper describes how condominium is understood by each approach and …

Anti-Social Behaviour, Expulsion From Condominium, And The Reconstruction Of Ownership, Douglas C. Harris

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Statutory condominium regimes facilitate massive increases in the density of owners. The courts are responding to this spatial reorganization of ownership by reconstructing what it means to be the owner of an interest in land. This article analyzes the ten cases over eight years (from 2008 to 2015) in which Canadian courts grant eviction and sale orders against owners within condominium for anti-social behaviour. The expulsion orders are new. Until these cases, ownership within condominium in Canadian common law jurisdictions was thought to be as robust as ownership outside condominium such that owners could not be expelled from condominium for …

Book Review: Earth Jurisprudence: Private Property And The Environment, F. Tim Knight

Librarian Publications & Presentations

No abstract provided.

The Constitutional Dimensions Of Aboriginal Title, Brian Slattery

Brian Slattery

As the Supreme Court reaffirms in Tsilhqot’in Nation v. British Columbia (2014), Aboriginal title is a sui generis right which cannot be described in traditional property terms. This paper argues that the explanation for this fact is that Aboriginal title is not a concept of private law. It is a concept of public law. It does not deal with the rights of private entities but with the rights and powers of constitutional entities that form part of the Canadian federation. If we look for analogies to Aboriginal title, we find a close parallel in Provincial title – the rights held …

Common Law Property Theory And Jurisprudence In Canada, Sarah E. Hamill

Osgoode Legal Studies Research Paper Series

In recent years, property theorists have offered varying accounts as to what exactly ownership is, typically focusing on one or more key rights to the owned thing. However, most of these theories are articulated in the abstract and do not engage the jurisprudence. This article uses the jurisprudence concerning expropriation and adverse possession to show that Canadian courts have in fact developed their own definition of ownership — one that is not reflected in the property theory discourse. The author goes on to argue that this narrower definition of ownership — made up by the rights to exclude and to …

Book Review: Who Owns The Moon?: Extraterrestrial Aspects Of Land And Mineral Resources Ownership, F. Tim Knight

Librarian Publications & Presentations

This is a review of Who Owns the Moon?: Extraterrestrial Aspects of Land and Mineral Resources Ownership by Virgiliu Pop (ISBN: 978-1-4020-9134-6)

The Peculiar Circumstances Of Eminent Domain In India, Priya S. Gupta

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The question of a constitutional property regime governing eminent domain gave rise to nuanced and principled debates in the Constituent Assembly of India, which drafted the Indian Constitution between 1947 and 1950, and in subsequent Parliamentary meetings regarding constitutional amendments. However, these extensive deliberations resulted in a clause that only addressed the most superficial aspects of property rights in India. Similarly, the statutory frameworks that govern state acquisition of land, in particular The Land Acquisition Act, 1894, provide only another part of the puzzle. This paper starts earlier in history-at the inception of eminent domain in India-in order to put …

Adding Epicycles: The Inconsistent Use Test In Adverse Possession Law, Michael H. Lubetsky

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

The common law courts in Ontario developed the Inconsistent Use Test (IUT) to assess claims of adverse possession. The IUT, however, often produces counter-intuitive results, which has led other jurisdictions to reject it and caused the Ontario courts to craft numerous exceptions and qualifications to the test that have left the state of the law on adverse possession very unclear. This article argues that the IUT actually represents an unconscious attempt by the Ontario judiciary to develop a functional equivalent to the civil law principle of "interversion," currently found in article 923 of the Civil Code of Quebec (CCO). It …

Attacks On Your Reputation: Potential Responses, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Articles & Book Chapters

This article describes the law of defamation, with advice to realtors who have been the subject of defamatory statements what recourse is available to them.

Reputation: A Vital Asset For Real Estate Practitioners, Trevor C. W. Farrow

Articles & Book Chapters

This article describes the law of defamation, with advice to realtors on how to avoid defaming others.

The Metaphysics Of Tracing: Substituted Title And Property Rhetoric, Craig Rotherham

Osgoode Hall Law Journal

Tracing is conceptualized as the "following" of an object through an exchange transaction and into the product of that exchange. Why is this so and what are the consequences? This article argues that the presentation of tracing in the metaphysical language of transmutation allows the doctrine to be depicted as consistent with axiomatic notions of property that understand it as pre-political and that preclude judicial readjustment of proprietary rights. However, the metaphysical conceptualization of tracing gives the remedy a conceptual structure that has resulted in the doctrine developing dysfunctionally when compared with the normative justifications that motivated its initial development. …

The Legal Basis Of Aboriginal Title, Brian Slattery

Articles & Book Chapters

This paper considers a range of differing approaches to the question of Aboriginal land rights in the light of the judgment of the B.C. Supreme Court in the Delgamuukw case.

Possession And Title To Land In English Law, Kent Mcneil

Articles & Book Chapters

The common law relating to land relies heavily on possession as a source of title and proprietary rights. Even a trespasser who wrongfully takes possession of land acquires a title to it that is good against anyone who cannot prove he or she has a better title. This is due in part to the rule that title is presumed from possession, but in addition it relies upon the incapacity of an outside claimant to rely on a jus tertii. In other words, the claimant is barred from pointing to a third party’s title under which he or she does not …

The Crown’S Title To Lands In England, Kent Mcneil

Articles & Book Chapters

A fundamental principle of the common law, stemming from the doctrine of tenures, provides that the Crown has the underlying or radical title to all land within its common law dominions. Private persons and corporations do not “own” land; instead, they hold estates in land that are presumed to be derived from Crown grants. This common law edifice is built on the legal fiction that the Crown once possessed and therefore owned all the lands in England. As this is known to be a fiction, all it does is give the Crown its underlying title and thus a right to …

The Constitutional Guarantee Of Aboriginal And Treaty Rights, Brian Slattery

Articles & Book Chapters

This paper proposes a workable framework for the application of the constitutional provisions dealing with Aboriginal and treaty rights in Canada.

The Land Rights Of Indigenous Canadian Peoples, Brian Slattery

Brian Slattery

The problem examined in this work is whether the land rights originally held by Canada's Indigenous peoples survived the process whereby the British Crown acquired sovereignty over their territories, and, if so, in what form. The question, although historical in nature, has important implications for current disputes involving Aboriginal land claims in Canada. It is considered here largely as a matter of first impression. The author has examined the historical evidence with a fresh eye, in the light of contemporaneous legal authorities. Due consideration is given to modern case-law, but the primary focus is upon the historical process proper.

Authority For Sale And Privity Of Contract: The Proprietary Basis Of The Right To The Proceeds Of Sale In The Common Law, Benjamin Geva

Articles & Book Chapters

Upon an authorized sale of goods, the owner's ability to recover the price from the buyer can be explained either by his property in the goods or by a contractual relationship. This article deals with the right to recover the price in the context of an historical and theoretical analysis of the right to the proceeds of a sale at common law. It is suggested that property is the basis of this right, rather than a contractual nexus. Part I presents the sale of goods by an agent of an undisclosed principal as a model situation in which the right …

The Polish Art Treasures In Canada, 1940-60, Sharon A. Williams

Articles & Book Chapters

The case of the Polish art treasures in Canada presents two important issues: the question of immunity of a foreign state's public movable property and the question of state responsibility for such property.