I absolutely LOVE this story, more than you can possibly imagine. It captures as few others do how Leftists deny the humanity of those they claim to care for. 

So what's the story? In Vancouver, one of the most beautiful and liberal cities in North America, Indigenous communities control some prime tracts of land. 

They have decided to maximize the value of that land by building massive skyscrapers--quite attractive ones, actually--to increase the housing stock in a region notorious for housing shortages. Because they hold sovereignty over the land they don't need permission from their neighbors and the powers-that-be, which, you would imagine, is something the decolonizing Left would appreciate. 

“What chafes critics, even those who might consider themselves progressive, is that they expect reconciliation to instead look like a kind of reversal, rewinding the tape of history to some museum-diorama past.” https://t.co/xIcRKFH3ni

— Khelsilem (@Khelsilem) March 12, 2024

Except, of course, they don't. Indigenous people are supposed to wear face paint, build totems, and worship heathen gods or something. They are supposed to be the antithesis--the utter rejection--of the modern world. And nothing says modern Western culture like skyscrapers built out of glass, steel, and concrete.

Woo, boy! Gotta love it. People who control valuable resources in one of the wealthiest regions in the world are embracing their inner capitalist, and it pisses the Left off to no end. 

Vancouver has long been nicknamed the “city of glass” for its shimmering high-rise skyline. Over the next few years, that skyline will get a very large new addition: Sen̓áḵw, an 11-tower development that will Tetrize 6,000 apartments onto just over 10 acres of land in the heart of the city. Once complete, this will be the densest neighbourhood in Canada, providing thousands of homes for Vancouverites who have long been squeezed between the country’s priciest real estate and some of its lowest vacancy rates. 

Sen̓áḵw is big, ambitious and undeniably urban—and undeniably Indigenous. It’s being built on reserve land owned by the Squamish First Nation, and it’s spearheaded by the Squamish Nation itself, in partnership with the private real estate developer Westbank. Because the project is on First Nations land, not city land, it’s under Squamish authority, free of Vancouver’s zoning rules. And the Nation has chosen to build bigger, denser and taller than any development on city property would be allowed.

People of the First Nations aren't supposed to behave like this! They are supposed to be the noble savages, the people who dance with wolves, the wise perpetual victims of rapacious White settlers who act as our unlistened-to consciences. 

They definitely are NOT supposed to be property developers, and especially not ones who will--gasp!--profit off the land they are required to worship. 

Oh, and, uh--they might cost other property developers money by reducing shortages of housing, and let the riff-raff in. 

I am certain that the urban White liberals wanted these lands to become vast green spaces that they could enjoy at no cost to them. Places where they could commune with nature and the indigenous gods as they contemplated the sins of Western Man. 

Not skyscrapers!

There’s also been a persistent sense of disbelief that Indigenous people could be responsible for this futuristic version of urban living. In 2022, Gordon Price, a prominent Vancouver urban planner and a former city councillor, told Gitxsan reporter Angela Sterritt, “When you’re building 30, 40-storey high rises out of concrete, there’s a big gap between that and an Indigenous way of building.”

OMG that's hilarious! An Affluent White Liberal Woman (AWFL) explaining to indigenous people what they are supposed to live like. 

Beyond parody. 

The subtext is as unmissable as a skyscraper: Indigenous culture and urban life—let alone urban development—don’t mix. That response isn’t confined to Sen̓áḵw, either. On Vancouver’s west side, the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations—through a joint partnership called MST Development Corp.—are planning a 12-tower development called the Heather Lands. In 2022, city councillor Colleen Hardwick said of that project, “How do you reconcile Indigenous ways of being with 18-storey high-rises?” (Hardwick, it goes without saying, is not Indigenous.) MST is also planning an even bigger development, called Iy̓álmexw in the Squamish language and ʔəy̓alməxʷ in Halkomelem. Better known as Jericho Lands, it will include 13,000 new homes on a 90-acre site. At a city council meeting this January, a stream of non-Indigenous residents turned up to oppose it. One woman speculated that the late Tsleil-Waututh Chief Dan George would be outraged at the “monstrous development on sacred land.” 

To Indigenous people themselves, though, these developments mark a decisive moment in the evolution of our sovereignty in this country. The fact is, Canadians aren’t used to seeing Indigenous people occupy places that are socially, economically or geographically valuable, like Sen̓áḵw. After decades of marginalization, our absence seems natural, our presence somehow unnatural. Something like Sen̓áḵw is remarkable not just in terms of its scale and economic value (expected to generate billions in revenue for the Squamish Nation). It’s remarkable because it’s a restoration of our authority and presence in the heart of a Canadian city.

"One woman speculated that the late Tsleil-Waututh Chief Dan George would be outraged at the “monstrous development on sacred land.”

How can you not love this?

It turns out that indigenous people are not some special breed of human put on earth to shame White people into loving Gaia, but are just as capable as anyone else of wanting running water, modern conveniences, and affordable housing. Given the resources they, on the whole, are just like you and me in wanting to enter the modern world. 

I have very mixed feelings about the fate of Native Americans. Having lived in the West during my youth and having spent significant time on the Navajo Reservation, I have been appalled beyond words at the squalor that many Natives have been condemned to. As sad as it is to say, attempts to preserve the old ways have harmed countless generations of people. It's not even clear what the old ways would actually be in the modern world. 

No guns? No horses? Nothing modern? When the New World and the Old World met, disease fundamentally changed the entire continent. The New World could never return to pre-Columbian times even if not a single White man set foot on the continent after 1500. 

I am thrilled to see the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh Nations using the resources they have to build a future, not hang on to an unrecoverable past, and am almost as thrilled to see the Woke White Women of the AWFLs have a hissy fit about the Natives getting uppity. 

What chafes critics, even those who might consider themselves progressive, is that they expect reconciliation to instead look like a kind of reversal, rewinding the tape of history to some museum-diorama past. Coalitions of neighbours near Iy̓álmexw and Sen̓áḵw have offered their own counter-proposals for developing the sites, featuring smaller, shorter buildings and other changes. At the January hearing for Iy̓álmexw, one resident called on the First Nations to build entirely with selectively logged B.C. timber, in accord with what she claimed were their cultural values. These types of requests reveal that many Canadians believe the purpose of reconciliation is not to uphold Indigenous rights and sovereignty, but to quietly scrub centuries of colonial residue from the landscape, ultimately in service of their own aesthetic preferences and personal interests.

The Indigenous Canadians are finally enforcing a 150-year-old treaty—one that Canada promptly ignored. As a Western capitalist, I am all for upholding contracts and am firmly on the side of the natives in this case. It may be that some treaties will need revisiting to ensure that legal jurisdictions are cleared up, but economic rights should be color-blind. 

Liberals, though, don't believe in economic/property rights, but in enforcing their aesthetic vision. Natives shouldn't be doing this, dammit! I want my crying Indian back!

Ironically enough, the greatest beneficiaries of this investment will be lower and middle income Canadians who are priced out of the Vancouver market--and no doubt the AWFLs aren't looking forward to sharing their paradise with the hoi polloi. 

Yeah, well...suck on that lemon, ladies.