Land use and foreign ownership has been much discussed on PEI recently, but this is certainly not a new preoccupation in this province. When my ancestors arrived from England and Scotland in the 18th and 19th centuries, they would have paid rent to landowners back in Britain, people who probably never set foot on PEI. That system ended in the 1870s, allowing people to buy the land where they lived, but Islanders seem to have been touchy about who can own land here ever since.

Someone showed me a post from a Facebook group that referred to certain recent land purchases as “land grabbing.” It’s the perfect phrase to stir people up on social media, but those of us who are not Indigenous Canadians need to be mindful of the history of land grabbing on this continent.

There is plenty of talk about who should own land on PEI, who should be allowed to build structures and where they can be situated, but very little, if any, discussion about how we recognize and reconcile the fact that every inch of this island is unceded Mi’kmaq territory. How must the “land grabbing” discussion sound to Mi’kmaq people?