The Ontario Landowners Association introduced property rights and Crown Land Patents to so many of us. The interest generated by our membership in the OLA led us to conduct extensive research and facts have been uncovered that will be of interest and vitally important to all landowners. The time has come to test these facts in a court of competent jurisdiction through a Constitutional Challenge.
Having founded “Upper Canada Land Titles and Patent Research Initiative”, a not for profit corporation whose purpose is to accomplish the necessary research, fund the initiative and prove the validity of our land patents, we are preparing to launch this Constitutional Challenge based on the Rights given and granted by the Sovereigns’ of the Crown, prior to Confederation, in our land grants.
These land grants became Letters Patent on accomplishing the requirements regarding clearing and building a residence on our granted property. The following quote is from the Department of the Interior, explaining our governments’ position: “Letters Patent are instruments issued by the Crown, granting or confirming rights to a portion of land. Letters Patent are issued as the first title to land and serve as proof that the land has been alienated from the Crown.”
Once patented, our grants became the “root of title” for our property, with rights stating the term on the patent, heirs and assigns FOREVER. Many of the grants contained reservations, such as white pines used for shipbuilding and mines of gold and silver and these reservations remain vested in the Crown. If one were to search their land title at one of the land registry offices and pay for the parcel register that is available for every property, they might note that in the top right hand corner of the printout it says, “subject to reservations in Crown Grant”. We believe that this is on the parcel register because at Confederation, as part of the BNA Act, the Crown passed the reservations to the Province for administrative purposes.
The original grants were given for valuable consideration; either labour, loyalty, military service or money. Once the conditions were removed and they became Royal Letters Patent, these 2 party contracts became Matters of Record and as such can neither be ignored nor challenged, unless the heir or assign to the original contract has chosen to give up his rights or the Sovereign chose to buy back the property within 60 years of granting the same. Because the patented land grants were two party contracts, the reference to the reservations of the Crown Grants is incomplete. It should refer to the entire contract, including the rights given and granted.
We know the reason for the reference to the reservations being on our land parcel register is that the “rights reserved for the Crown”, known as the reservations, were passed to the Province of Ontario to administer at Confederation. But where are the “rights of the grantee referenced in the land titles system”? They are part of the contract known as the Crown Grant, the first entry in the land register of the Land Registry System noted as the Crown patent, but when our title was transferred from the land registry to land titles, our recorded rights failed to make the transition.
When the Crown granted land to the settler, soldier or loyalist, the Crown alienated the land from its’ holdings and the “fee became vested in the grantee”. And the rights so granted run with the land, therefore, regardless of who becomes the owner of all or part of the original granted land, the rights remain with the land until the owner chooses to give them up.
We own our land in fee simple, meaning “the unconditional and complete and total ownership of property”, subject only to taxation, police power, expropriation and escheat. Nowhere does it say in our grants that we are subject to Conservation controls, natural heritage designations, greenbelt plans or any other form of encumbrance or public interest the province or municipality deems appropriate for our patented property.
There are 3 types of land ownership geographically located in the province of Ontario. They are Indigenous land, Crown land and Patented land. Private property is synonymous with Patented land, and it is the only one of the three that is subject to municipal property taxation. We have to wonder if the patents are defeated in the courts, and the land escheats back to the Crown, where the tax base will come from.
Our properties were granted by the Sovereigns’ of the Crown. It was the will of the Sovereign to settle the colonies in North America and that was accomplished by granting land. So, the court case we are preparing, in the form of a Constitutional Challenge, will seek to determine why our various levels of government, who have no right, title or interest in our property, are not respecting the prerogative of the Sovereign.
Joan Olech
Upper Canada Land Titles and Patent Research Initiative
www.patentresearch.ca
www.ontarioprivateproperty.ca