News and Features
Teed Off: UBC Golf Course Strikes a Deal
By Dee Hon published Jan 1, 2008
It’s a done deal. The Musqueam native band will get the UBC golf course, but golfers can keep swatting balls there until 2083. There will be no casinos, no condos, no other exploitation of the course by the band, at least until most of the current band members are dead. So ends the acrimony among west side neighbours fighting each other over the fate of the course. And so begins what Premier Gordon Campbell hails as a “new chapter” in relations between the province and its First Nations.
The settlement, reached in November, will be finalized in early 2008. The Musqueam receive title to the land on which the UBC course sits, a section to the west of the course zoned for housing, a little-used parcel of Pacific Spirit Park, and Richmond’s Bridgepoint Casino lands, which include the River Rock Casino. The band also receives $20.3 million in cash. About half of that is from provincial sale and lease revenues from the casino lands. The province had sold the course to UBC for $11 million in 2003, but the band challenged the sale in court and won.
The recent settlement, which ends three court cases, is a long-overdue step in resolving urban land claims. But it’s not a treaty, and the Musqueam have further claims to parts of Vancouver and the Lower Mainland. If these are settled in the same way—first in the courts, then in government back rooms—the process will be long, expensive, and contentious. In the absence of a comprehensive treaty or other agreement with the band, this settlement promises to be not a resolution but a template for future skirmishes.
