Get Crown land in Canada

I think the Peace River Valley is the most northerly significant agricultural land in Canada. Land along the Thompson and Fraser Rivers in BC reap the benefit of heat coming from the ocean, so they have better hardiness zones relative to their latitude. Imho land in the Kettle, Christian and Granby Valleys is pretty nice for the price.

Strawbale construction is pretty suitable for the prairies.

Check out the Saskatchewan fruit breeding program site for an idea of some food crops that can be grown in the cold prairies. (http://fruit.usask.ca/)

My response may come be in several different posts. To your first point, you may have misunderstood me, or I did not clarify well enough. I'm saying EVERY Canadian would get a free lot or acreage, rich or poor. So it isn't unfair. It's equality. Then, if you want to acquire more land and lots, you're on your own. You have to buy it. However, I think there should be price limits, limits to quantities of land you can acquire and regulations on what you can do with - no polluting, no destroying, etc.

This program would be inherently limited by population, so the effects of devaluing other real estate are also limited. You still have to buy a vacation property if you want one, farmland, business lots and so on. So, a real estate industry can still exist.

If my idea was introduced now, current property owners would find their properties devalued, yes. But this is only because the system was rotten so they were inflated in the first place. The solution is not to continue a rotten system, but to correct it, even if some people will lose a bit. They will also gain a free property. And the main point is to help lower income people. IOW, there will be no omlette made without breaking a few eggs, but it is an omlette well worth making. Or some other type of omlette which addresses the same issues, perhaps borrowing from your ideas.

The scenario you describe of homesteaders originally getting free land, justified by all the work they had to do, largely still exists. People still have build their home, earn a living, raise their kids, etc, etc. All they're getting is chunk of land. They still have lots to do. A small chunk of land is just a base, a good starting point, something to better ensure that no one can truly be homeless. In a land this vast, I find that highly reasonable.

Giving a little land to the poor can be a way to give them less money. They should grow their own food and build their own homes, when possible, IMO. An IMMENSE amount goes to paying for their rents, so they have a place to live. It's basically wasted money. Much of it could be saved, though perhaps some of it should be given to them to buy other important things to get them on their own feet, like garden seeds and tools.

With the amount that is given to an average welfare family in Canada in one year alone, I could build a beautiful cabin. So, maybe they should all be given a free cabin as a send off gift, too, since the gov (and us) will still save money and many would be hard pressed to find the means and discipline to build a decent climate-appropriate dwelling on their new lot in a short amount of time.

You shouldn't mistake me for some impractical person who thinks all would be well if we suddenly just went with natural anarchy or something. I think the general hippy point of view and the general mainstream point of view both have something to offer, as well as other points of view.

Though Peter, if the idea isn't distasteful to you, check out the seasteading threads in the homesteading forum. There are all sorts of things on boats, boat-building, and living on the sea full-time.

-CK

Chris Kott wrote:Peter, I feel that in an economic climate this perilous, proposing a transition to something so different could be so destabilizing as to prove fatal. Which might not be bad, if what replaced it didn't turn out to be patchwork corporate fiefdoms, little consumerist despotisms where people are sold to the company before they're born for the guarantee of food and safety. In such a situation as you describe, the land lots nearer to infrastructure and urban centres would see more demand, and therefore be worth more. Even if they could only be traded for other property, I think what would happen is the far-flung plots would be traded in handfuls by those who can do so for individual plots nearer the towns. If you tried to keep it one to one, there would be no incentive for those with the best land to trade with those with lesser land, which is just fostering another kind of inequality.-CK

Yes, any major improvements may need to be phased in.

People are still too in love with unfair, unsustainable systems to be intent on developing really good ones. However, we are on the brink of years of suffering. After some decades of this there will likely be much soul-searching and hunger for real solutions. Land distribution systems must be made with values and thinking akin to our quest here to change agriculture. But, there's still enough dirty, unsustainable money flowing and sheeple are too easily duped into just watching TV and going with the flow, etc, that not much changes now. As with individuals, whole societies, unfortunately, often need to suffer before they change positively quicker and more significantly.

My idea may only be half-baked. Yes, I admit that. However, there are also many details and adjustments which I didn't get too. I didn't mean it was a complete, perfect, one-size-fits-all solution. For example, remote properties can be somewhat larger, whereas one downtown might be small. A retiree who can no longer garden might want a small property. Also, if there's a pool of properties, you don't necessarily have to find the right person to swap with, but you can put your old property back into the pool and get an available one in the location you desire. Plus, maybe you don't get title until age 21. Other things. People do change. They want urban life, then they want rural life. Personally, I think urban life will start going to hell soon and small towns will be much better, but that's another topic.

Chris Kott wrote: The answer to our economic woes is never just to give people stuff. I will try to say it in another way: A thing given freely has no value. It is free. What incentive is being given for people to value it? You're seeking to cheapen what it means to be a landowner. What you propose would anger a great many landowners who've worked hard for the land they own, and for whom any amount of land that he and everyone else could be handed for free would be a pittance. What you are proposing essentially amounts to the destruction of all wilderness in Canada, much like what you see outside of National and State parks in the States. In my opinion, your idea is a terrible one, and badly thought out. I would advise you to revise your reading list if this is where it's leading you. -CK

I've never read this idea. It's my own. As said, it needs developing, but I think it at least has the right spirit, at least. Give the people something, a base. It's a reasonable socialist element, one of many, to be balanced with reasonable capitalism elements, in a healthy society. And they will still have a hell of lot of other things that won't be given to them. How many people do you know who would just pitch a tent on their land or move into a small cabin and be content? Very few, I would think

Yes, perhaps it would swallow up too much new land, so maybe we have to work with existing properties. Perhaps instead of paying all that welfare rent, governments should buy land that is already on the market and divy it up into "birthright lots". ( I'm in Saskatchewan and this perhaps colours my view. As they say, when my dog runs away, I can watch him do it for three days...)

Yes, all those who have worked hard in our flawed system will be upset. However, since we are entering a Survival Era, real estate values will plummet on their own soon, in my estimation. So, the major beef of all those who worked so hard won't be against a program which gives a base to people, but rather against the flawed system which they worked so hard in and now is letting them down. Many of those will likely be among those who wished they had a place instead of just giving it back to the bank when the economy tanks...

Each historical case (ie Germany, inter-war period) is different. Their case is unique, such as ours now and the global scenario now. I'm surprised when I encounter people who don't see global crises on the horizon, by virtue of many problems snow-balling in the near future.

Drop my farmwork and drive towards greater self-reliance and go work 12 - 16 hours a day so I can buy my dream property and set up the way I want to, eh? Earning more money does makes some sense, thanks. However, I think it makes the greatest sense to wait a year or three, then buy land for pennies on the dollar. No, I can't prove this, but I expect it. Neither can you prove it won't happen and I'd say the evidence points towards the probability that real estate prices will indeed plummet. I'm very busy, either working for money or meeting my needs directly and helping others. Considering my health issues, I'm a hard worker. I grew up on a farm. Work was a way of life and still is, to a large degree. Stop thinking I'm smoking dope, doing nothing, collecting pogie and waiting for people to hand me things, if you are. I don't even drink or use tobacco.

I'm not a whiner, but a doer. I'm just concerned that you and many others who work more in the 9-5 world and believe more in the success of the existing economic system(s), will get short-changed. At such point, you may wish you had put more time into self-reliance and other alternative economic strategies.

Statements or implying that I don't know hard work are still annoying me, so...

This was a dairy farm when I grew up. We'd often rise at 6 am to milk cows, starting at 10 years of age or so, and things were much less automated then. After an hour or two of hard work, then it was off to school. Then milk cows, throw bales, fork manure, weed gardens, drive tractors, etc, again in the evening. On Saturdays, we might work all day, picking rocks in the fields or something, and often during summer holidays, too. When haying or harvesting grain demanded, we might work round the clock. As we got older, we put in more hours. Frankly, I think my parents made kids lift too many heavy bales, etc, (we had to put up 10,000 or so, which meant moving them all by hand several times), but times were tough and it was more acceptable back then to make children work harder. Yet, we also felt pride and us five boys were all athletic, so we'd play hockey, soccer and do track, etc, in our spare time. Pigs for physical exertion, but this was/is part of German Mennonite culture. There should have been more balance...

I've also done a bunch of construction, welded in factories, done years of installing floor covering , worked in a meat-packing plant and many other things. I could go on, but just wanted to make the point that I'm not lazy (or whiny). I just have a different view of the provincial, national and global situation, and so this affects my strategy

Now, the fed gov want to revise the pension system. It is unsustainable. That doesn't surprise me in the least. However, will they address Parliament's own high wages and pensions first, to gain some credibility? Probably not or not much. Another example of "broken-ness" and incompetency.

But "broken-ness" sounds so negative, so maybe we should just say improvements are needed - but in some case they are enormous and desperate.

Currently, property prices around here are what I call absurdly high. Reasonable prices, to my mind, might be 10 or 20% of what there are now.

Many people buy properties and spend 30 years paying for them, likely working at jobs they dislike. You probably call that good for them, the economy and for society, while I think of it more as a problem. Economies can tank, like in the US, and then all your work may be for naught, or largely so. You may end up in the street or with a property which is worth a quarter of what you paid for it, if you have even finished paying for it. Now you'll probably tell me that Canada is so much more stable. Well, actually we are too similar to rule such a great devaluing of property out.

Whereas, if here were price limits on properties and limits to quantities you can own, then a property is soon paid for. The working person is less stressed mentally and physically, and has more time for permaculture and other important things. See, there are limits to the value of hard work. At some point it may become more absurd and an unreliable security. If job pensions, unemployment benefits and other things suffer in a floundering economy, then we realize the system wasn't so sound after all. But, simple observation and analysis can tell us that ahead of time. So, while work for wage is good, it isn't everything. Many people have all there eggs in the one basket of the mainstream economy, which isn't even a sustainable one, so they may get burnt. I say they will definitely get burnt, but it is for each to gauge on their own what is likely to come, now.

To allow property prices to soar to what the market will bear is to allow artificially high values to be placed on them. And having a place to live is so basic a human need that it is a destabilizing thing to allow this to happen, yet we see it all over the world. That is broken-ness. People living and dying in the streets while rich people make money off of it. Many people see all the absurdly high-priced property as an economic driver. I see it as driving too people people into the ground, and destabilizing economies and the country.

Peter, valuing things at what the market will bear is not brokenness; it may be on the greedier end of things, but it is simply common sense. If someone offers the seller a price higher than the one he is asking, he is a fool to refuse the added cash. Supply and demand isn't simply a catchphrase. When governments start regulating prices and supply, they aren't going to set a policy that risks having too much production than can be sold; that would result in depressed pricing, and those who spent more than they could afford to produce would go bankrupt, like getting a mortgage on a house at a higher price, then having the value drop; one is still required to pay the high-priced mortgage.

To be clear, there is nothing artificial in the pricing of real estate. It is derived from what the economy will bear, what people will pay, again and again, over time, because the property in question allows for some activity that the property exactly like it but in the middle of the NWT does not, like proximity to good jobs, schools, transportation, good weather, whatever. It is the reason some agricultural properties are worth more than others, even if the two are completely unimproved otherwise; if you can feed sixty people on one 100 acre lot, and 120 on another, it is completely reasonable that the more productive property be worth more. If the downtown lot that's barely enough for the footprint of the condo that's on it can produce a rental income of $2800/floor, it's not because anyone is being forced to pay that at gunpoint; obviously there's money in it, hence the elevated value. Land is like people: not all are created equal. This doesn't mean some are superior to others, but it does mean that some pieces of land, like some people, are unsuited for some types of activity, and better suited to others. There is no logical base for the idea you propose.

Many people don't get mortgages of their own, gradually earning a place of their own. Rather, they pay almost the whole monthly carrying cost of a mortgage to live in someone else's place and pay their mortgage for them. I think it's better to own, don't you?

You say that to your way of thinking, property prices should be 10 to 20% of what they are. Where? Are you still going by the $10,000 an acre figure? I think you need to check your numbers as well. Checking www.mls.ca for property prices in central/southern Ontario, the average per acre price for unimproved land outside of urban or developed areas is about $1000. Do you think it reasonable that an acre cost $100 to $200? If that is your contention, I think you're being extremely unrealistic. Perhaps a bit greedy. Were I to stop being charitable, I'd call you a looter. For one who has spent so much time doing hard labour, it is a wonder you don't appreciate its virtues more.

In general terms, the position I see you pushing is one of "Give the man a fish," an unsustainable approach, whereas I suggest "Teach a man to fish" (insert gender-neutral term if you wish).

As to your assessment of the system, to explain why it is the way it is, I direct you to the past, around the time that sixty-five became the standard retirement age. It was completely reasonable to assume that if you worked all your days in a factory and retired at 65, that the company would support you to the rest of your days, a whole 5 years if you were lucky. Nowadays, though, if one retires at 65, it is not unheard of to live another 35 years. To be precise about the nature of the system's dysfunction, it is outdated.

And as to you waiting a year or three to buy someplace for pennies on the dollar, first, good luck. Second, I still suggest you work and save up, as you will be able to buy more with more money, howevermuch it costs.

Just for kicks, though, please explain to me how and why we're headed for societal collapse. Just make it original; shale oil extraction has set back the whole peak oil thing, and it's been determined that trees can increase the amount of carbon they turn into wood by at least 200%. Oh, and apparently, the negative effects of Co2 concentrations in the oceans can be mitigated by mixing ocean layers, which brings more nutrients to where they're needed, resulting in healthier ecosystems.

Later I will try a different approach, with some ideas that might actually do what you want to get done to some extent without causing the collapse you're forecasting.

-CK

Peter, I'm sorry, I got my threads crossed. I don't think it was you that made the per acre price estimate with which I took issue. But I think the rest of my breakdown of your figures is accurate. My figuring is based on my neck of the woods, though. What are you using as an average per acre price?

Another question: Why, if you are convinced that there will be a massive market correction in the near future, are you seeking to affect change to a system that is about to self-correct? Why not argue for working and saving, as opposed to locking in to a mortgage now, and waiting for such a time as that happens? Or do you figure such a correction will devalue currency so as to make no matter?

I am, incidentally, not being facetious when I ask what your vision of collapse entails. I am sincerely trying to wrap my head around how you arrived at your conclusion. I still disagree, but if I knew what the thought processes were that led you there, I might be better able to speak to the ideas you seek to develop.

You like the idea of keeping land as a commodity, while I like the idea of a basic piece, say even 1/4 acre, be a human right. This is quite doable in a country this large. If not free, then it should at least be highly affordable. So, this is our difference. I'm all for teaching people to fish instead of giving them fish, but some things are basic to life - like air. Land never was just a "product". It was originally free. Then claimed and distribution/marketing of it came to be - however fair or unfair. I realize that systems have to exist to regulate land distribution. My basic gist is that they be far less commercial. I think my reasons, which I probably don't have time to further spell out, are excellent, and represent ideas of progress.

Think about a person slaving for 30 years to pay for a lot, when he could have been fixing his teeth, taking better care of children, better informing himself on many subjects, developing many skills, buying better food and on and on. Yet, you think high priced real estate is just fine, even when lower income people are squeezed. Yes, owning is far better, but it is undoable for many. I say they and everyone has enough things to strive for without being saddled with big mortgages.

The environmental crisis alone is enough to make the economy go very, very sour. The Earth is the basis of all money, yet its needs are being flaunted and ignored. (I thought people at this site knew and accepted that.) Look into the horrors of uranium/nuclear, fracking, chemical/factory farming, clear-cutting, petroleum overuse, etc, etc, etc, and see how they are all linked and coming to a head. Earth is/will rebel mightily and then what? Yet, we move at a snail's pace towards a clean, green sustainable, fair economy. You think we will always adapt and we will, but this time its different, as most scientists tell us in grim detail. The
adjustments will be mighty and not without great suffering, even in the developed world. This is actually common knowledge, by now.

Peter, I think there are some problems with the idea of not commoditising land. To work in this world, ideas have to be couched in the language being used. Esperanto was a beautiful idea that no one adopted, so it died. Not assigning a value to something in a society where things are generally valued by their cost is just asking for that thing to be exploited in an unmanaged way, likely by the least qualified, leading to waste and no actual benefit to anyone.

I think it would be much more effective to take the idea you wish to develop and couch it in the form of a land grant program. It could be structured to cost the involved levels of government little, and could be structured in such a way that the development of the land could be kept to sustainability and permaculture, for instance. I personally would build in an enforced stewardship of the land, as in the land grant contracts would have to be either sold within a family or organisational group, or kept by one owner for a period of, say, 99 years. That would keep it to people sharing a long-term view.

Let me know what you think. I fear a third party might misunderstand our discussion as some sort of argument. I'd like to steer this conversation in a clearly more constructive direction.

-CK

Various approaches could be explored/taken, but the main thing, IMO, would be to make more land (lots and acreages) more easily available to lower income people, because right now it is too difficult for many. Yes, in an organized way and with good steward, etc, built into contracts, etc. Globally, we see the need even greater than here. It isn't right or good to keep poor people down too much. They need reasonable leg-ups, as well as incentive. If not my land ideas, then others can be developed, but there is room for much improvement, IMO. I'm running out of time I can devote to this thread, so I may just leave it at that. Thanks for the discussion.

Well thanks, Peter. I'm just of the opinion that we have to be careful how we change things, so as to avoid accelerating any collapse to a point where we can't get out from under it. I also think it is important to keep in mind the labours of ancestors in the case of land owned by families over generations, and what it would mean if we were talking about redistributing that product of someone else's labour for the common good. I think, incidentally, that common good is extremely subjective, and common knowledge is right up there with common sense in my top ten list of favourite oxymorons. Also, I think that you ascribe more nobility to the masses than actually exists. How many of the people you seek to help would rather sit at home collecting welfare, not for legitimate reasons, but because to get a real job to earn the same amount does them no benefit (a rational conclusion, especially if the costs incurred to work cancel out a portion of what you'd make)? How many would pass up this Land Grant idea for that welfare cheque? That is my argument for making any such program a more targeted one, based on improvement to the biosphere on any given property. But I think, based on some of your earlier points, that it is incredibly important to make it a program available to all, that is, every individual as wants to participate. But if that's all from you, well good luck. It's been nice chatting.

-CK

Dale Hodgins wrote:      I have traveled to many of the sorts of places where this land is available. There are residency requirements and development requirements. I've also checked out lots of land which was selling for between $15 and $100 per acre. There were very good reasons for this cheap price and I ended up buying land in a more hospitable climate where people live. The $15 per acre stuff was north of Sudbury Ontario. It was clear-cut black spruce and Aspen. In that climate it takes about 75 years to get any useful stand of forest. The land tax over time ends up costing considerably more than the original purchase price. I'm a Canadian and have been to every province and have never encountered any free land which was worth owning.

    A century ago there were great opportunities for free land, then the government thought it would be a good idea to create northern development through land giveaways. Distance and climate have kept most of these communities from thriving.

    To see just how far governments will go to create development in inhospitable climates check out what the Soviet Union managed to do in Siberia. They moved hundreds of thousands of people into some horrible spots. Today the offspring of these people invariably head south.

... how far north of Sudbury? Timmins? Kapuskasing? Spruce and Aspen might be further north still. It sure doesn't seem to take 75 years for pine in the Sudbury area to get nice and pulpable again.
One of my grandfathers tried to make a go of it in Kap; I don't know what his full agricultural ambitions were but I do know it never went past hobby farm. My other grandfather in Kirkland Lake has one of the lushest gardens I've seen anywhere in the province. Maybe it's a matter of perspective, or maybe it's just way further north than I'm thinking (Moose factory?) but man. 15$/acre? Seriously?

... how far north of Sudbury? Timmins? Kapuskasing?

This was 15 years ago but large slash piles will always be cheap. None of the properties were as far north as Timmins. The best bang for the buck was near North Bay where large swaths of Maple were available. Maple in that area have black heart so are only useful for firewood, hugelkultur and syrup. These forests were in the $100 range. Most of what I looked at were over 500 acres with some approaching 10,000 acres.

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Might I suggest a slight change in targets here? I know people are talking about crown land but I am hearing more and more stories or retiring farmers whose kids want nothing to do with the farm. These people are struggling to find people to hire to work the land. I admit this is hearsay but something to check out. I have heard a few people starting landshare.ca here in Canada to model the same thing working in US. On this website people with unused land can lease it long term to people without land. Something to think about. Might be nice for some older farmers to have their land cared for enough to earn them some retirement income although I can see some situations arising on a hand shake deal if their children living somewhere else get wind of it, just make sure it is a good legal deal.

I keep hearing about the weirdness to the north. Cant have a gun, cant own the land, very high prices, a lot more poverty than you would think. The gov there have the people under their thumb. Not that they do not here. But at least with the mob rule here I have a chance. However, universal health care is a wonderful thing. More socially forward. Difficult to immigrate???

In a few years we shall see. I wanted to leave here to get away from my ex and find some work. I thought about going north. I thought about going to Florida too. Ex is dead now, good. Here is my home and I am staying. Besides my little prepper friends, if it gets bad you will be found no matter what. Like jeeze. I would like to visit my friends in Toronto some time and enjoy the same lake I do.