Comment: Who controls Crown lands in British Columbia?

By Warren Mirko and Geoffrey S. Moyse – Times Colonist

A commentary on behalf of the Public Land Use Society. Warren Mirko is the society’s executive director, and Geoffrey S. Moyse has been engaged in the practice of Aboriginal law and public law for 31 years.

British Columbia is undergoing a profound, and largely quiet, shift in land ownership and jurisdiction that raises a central question: Who has final authority over this province’s public lands?

The provincial government is steadily redefining public land, which makes up more than 95 per cent of the province, as subject to Indigenous ownership and asserted legal authority.