Adam Pankratz: Cowichan ruling is scaring away investors. Don’t let anyone say otherwise – MSN
Following the landmark Cowichan court ruling in August which declared private land title “defective and invalid” in areas over which Aboriginal title had been declared, the watchword from those who supported the decision was that everyone should calm down and not to be “alarmist.” Indeed that was the word used by the British Columbia Assembly of First Nations in their Oct. 23 news release on the topic, which blasted then B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad for “selective discriminatory” and “alarmist” rhetoric. It is now clear Rustad was not nearly alarmist enough as the uncertainty chickens have firmly come home to roost in B.C.’s economy.
On Dec. 5, the economic fallout from the NDP’s failure to vigorously defend private land and the public interest in court officially began in earnest. Montrose Property Holdings, a large industrial land owner which owns lands within the bounds of the Cowichan title decision, announced that they had lost their lender and a prospective tenant due to the uncertainty created by the August ruling, which declared Aboriginal title over 800 acres of the City of Richmond. The result was a $35 million dollar loan, meant to finance to finance the construction of a new building on their industrial property , being pulled because the lender could not be confident in the future of the land where the project was located.
