Canadians - does this bother you?

I was surprised to find out that the Queen of England is the sole legal owner of all the land in Canada. She also owns almost all of Canada's rich resources of subsurface and mineral rights.

Canadians, does it bother you that "your" land in Canada is owned by another country?

Is it no big deal to you, or is it time for a revolution?

It's a fact so it's easy enough to google:

land ownership in Canada
land tenure in Canada
crown land Canada
who owns Canadian land?

etc.

If you buy a house in Canada, you are not buying the land, it's called "land tenure" where you are borrowing it from the Queen.

It makes the housing bubble here look even more ridiculous (it takes 12 families' average incomes to buy one average house in Vancouver).

Guess I'm not the only one surprised to hear about this, but I'm a Texan, surely Canadians here know about it?

Could you show me where the Canada Act 1982 states anything about land ownership in Canada? There is no amendment to that Act which changes who owns the land.

Who owns the world? (2007)

LOL! But I'm positive that idea would be very unpopular around here.


Exactly.

There's a difference between having the option to lease or buy, and never being able to own. In Texas, land and mineral rights ownership is a huge deal; I'm having a tough time wrapping my head around the idea of being a citizen of a country in which you can never own any of the land. And your fellow citizens don't own any of it, either.

In all territories owned by the Crown, including Australia, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom, the governments of those countries do not own the land of the country, but may and frequently do administer it on behalf of its owner, HM Elizabeth II. More significantly all forms of land possession in those territories are based, formally and in law, on the Crown's superior ownership. This is why the Land Registry in places like the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia cannot register land ownership, only tenure. This is also why freehold and leasehold are defined in law as forms of tenure, not ownership.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Cahill_(author)

Crown land is a designated area belonging to the Crown, the equivalent of an entailed estate that passed with the monarchy and could not be alienated from it.
http://crownland.askdefine.com/


The Queen is the sole legal owner of all the land of Canada. The private “holdership” factor, based on freehold tenure of housing is 67%. For all other land it is less than 9.7%, with over 90% of Canadian land remaining as Crown leasehold, administered for the Crown by various agencies and departments of the government of Canada…

All physical land in Canada is the property of the Crown, Queen Elisabeth 11. There is no provision in the Canada Act, or in the Constitution Act 1982 which amends it, for any Canadian to own any physical land in Canada. All that Canadians may hold, in conformity with medieval and feudal law, is “an interest in an estate in land in fee simple”. Land defined as ‘Crown land’ in Canada, and administered by the Federal Government and the Provinces, is merely land not ‘dedicated’ or assigned in freehold tenure. Freehold is tenure, not ownership. Freehold land is ‘held’ not ‘owned’.
http://www.whoownstheworld.com/canada/


Within Canada, Crown Land is a designated area belonging to the Crown, the equivalent of an entailed estate that passes with the monarchy and cannot not be alienated from it; thus, per constitutional convention, these lands cannot be unliaterally sold by the monarch, instead passing on to the next king or queen unless the sovereign is advised otherwise by the ministers of the Crown. Though the Canadian monarch owns all Crown Land in the country, paralleling the "division" of the Crown amongst the federal and provincial governments, Crown Land is similarly divided so that some lands within the province are administered by the provincial Crown, whereas others are under the federal Crown. About 89% of Canada's land area (8,886,356 km²) is Crown Land, which may either be federal (41%) or provincial (48%); the remaining 11% is privately-owned.
http://www.websters-dictionary-onlin...&sa=Search#922

Land ownership in Canada is held by governments, Native groups, corporations, and individuals… Since Canada uses primarily British-derived common law, the holders of the land actually have land tenure (permission to hold land from the Crown) rather than absolute ownership.
The majority of all lands in Canada are held by governments on behalf of the monarchy and are called Crown Lands.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_ownership_in_Canada

Within Canada, Crown Land is a designated area belonging to the Queen in Right of Canada,[5] the equivalent of an entailed estate that passes with the monarchy and cannot be alienated from it; thus, per constitutional convention, these lands cannot be unilaterally sold by the monarch, instead passing on to the next king or queen unless the sovereign is advised otherwise by the ministers of the Crown. Though the Canadian monarch owns all Crown Land in the country, paralleling the "division" of the Crown amongst the federal and provincial governments, Crown Land is similarly divied so that some lands within the province are administered by the provincial Crown, whereas others are under the federal Crown.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_land#Canada

I guess it doesn't matter except that the Queen receives money from the rich natural resources from this country and our taxes - I feel all of that should go to benefit of the Canadian people. Having her own all of this country's land bothers me personally, but again, Texan.

(Scratch beneath the surface of that 10% "privately held" and you'll find the Queen owns that, too.)

In the U.S., if you own the mineral rights to a property and an oil/gas company wants to drill there, they will offer to pay you (per acre) to lease your mineral rights to them for a stated length of time. They also pay you a royalty (percentage of profit from oil and/or gas extracted). The lease payments in Texas are usually in the 4-digits per acre but can be in the 5-digits per acre (as in the Eagle Ford Shale play going on right now) and the royalties can be up to 25% - all depends on what you negotiate with them.

Mineral rights trump surface rights in Texas law, but if you also own the surface rights you get paid to lease those, too.

In Canada, the Queen owns almost all the mineral rights, I don't know the details but I'd assume the oil companies make the same offers to lease/royalties to whomever owns the surface and mineral rights in whatever country they want to drill. In Canada, the oil companies would pay the owner - the Queen.

On a side note, a farmer or rancher who owns some mineral rights can get a HUGE boon to his income through leasing them and/or royalties. Imagine what even $1M can do for a farming family - when the governments get that $1M it is spent in a matter of seconds.

I like living in Canada. I like the people here, and I like Americans, too. It's the governments I have some problems with sometimes. Seems to me it's only fair that the Canadian people be the ones to benefit from the land and resources.

I know how domestic and foreign oil companies work - they pay the owner to lease the mineral rights and surface area. The land is managed by the Canadian government (I'm sure there's a healthy cut for the government) but the Queen owns it. Who else would they pay but the owner?

Personally I wouldn't rely on the government to keep me informed on what it's doing. Historically, governments do not put the people as a priority. They tell people only what they want them to know.

Map of active oil and gas wells in Texas 2005 - well before the current boom going on with the shale plays. The Railroad Commission is having difficulty keeping up with all the drilling permits being requested the last 3 or so years - a 2011 map would show many, many more wells.

Some wells are on state land, but the vast majority belong to the "little people" who bought land, or had an ancestor who did. In Texas, the mineral rights go along with the sale of land, unless specified differently.

I believe my thread question has been answered, the Canadians here who responded didn't know, but they don't mind.