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Originally Posted by aberdeen5698
Well the government had given the me land for NOTHING and I had built a house on this free land and earned a living on it over the last hundred years, but have abandoned it for the last decade because nobody wants to rent it any more, then I'd probably have a lot weaker cause to be outraged than a citizen who had actually purchased the land with his own hard-earned money and was still making productive use of it.
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Errr fact check you do know that CP and CN acquired their land well over 100 years ago through legal barter and services rendered right? They weren't
given the land for free. Having right-of-way doesn't mean you are given land. It just means you have the right-of-way to conduct your regular business on the land whatever that requires. So that means regardless of if Vancouver passes a bylaw for example saying "no trains down that stretch" CP has the right to run trains because they have been given that right federally.
They do own their land though and purchased it 100+ years ago by footing the bill to build required railways across Canada in return for purchasing and being granted land. For example, in 1880 they were granted $25 million in credit and acreage in return for building over $25 million worth of railway. That's no different than farmers who were granted acreage by the government for moving out west and settling. Did all those farmers have less rights on their land than you do buying a house today just because they were granted the land for services rendered?
I don't think so.
CP wasn't just given anything for free though get that out of your head. There was a lot of bartering done back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, but it was still commerce and resulted in legal acquisition of land and assets.
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Sure, the city's actions have reduced the value of the land. But let's not forget that the land was GIVEN to the railway for use as a transportation corridor, so in this particular case I believe the city is right to insist that the land should continue to be used for this purpose.
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See above. It wasn't given for free. It was acquired through services rendered AKA building railways across Canada. BC wouldn't be a Province today if it weren't for CP building the first transcontinental railway across Canada. I think that gives them plenty of rights to the land they were "given" in return for the millions of dollars and man-hours spent in the late 1800s building the damned thing.
How quickly people forget Canadian history.
It isn't the city's right to "insist" anything about CP's land. They can ask kindly, but they actually can't insist anything. All they can do is try to force things indirectly by making it impossible for CP to sell their land. That is Vancouver's right but I still think it is a complete jerk move on their part.
At this stage though I doubt CP gives a crap if the land were sold to become residential or park land. They just want to get the money for the asset. The reality is many people in this thread are correct, it is just posturing and political gamesmanship because there is no industry anywhere along that stretch anymore and that's largely why CP abandoned the line for all these years. That doesn't mean they don't have a right to fair compensation for their land that they may have acquired 120 years ago, but have no less rights today than if they purchased it 20 years ago imo.
Again though get it out of your head that they were given anything for
free. Go read your history books again and you'll see they did a heck of a lot of work for the land they either purchased or were granted. You'll also realize that land grants were how this country was settled 100+ years ago and that many of our largest commercial farms today across the country are still owned by families that were originally granted their land.
Do they have less rights than you to their land? If CP doesn't, then I guess they don't either.
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