So if you’ve been paying any attention to the news in certain parts of Canada, at least, you’ve become aware the price of your average decent-sized house has rather, well, exploded. In Nova Scotia, they’ve discovered a solution. If you can prove there are aboriginal artifacts on your property, and that there’s the potential for an aboriginal group to make a land claim against your house (they do that up here every so often, apparently), you can convince the Nova Scotia government that your property is worth a whole dollar.
Normally, a brand-new seaside home on the outskirts of Antigonish, N.S. could easily fetch as much as $400,000.
But after homeowner Mike MacDonald stumbled upon a Mi’kmaq axe on the two-acre property, he was quickly able to convince the Province of Nova Scotia that his new home was now effectively worthless.
“Such a property would be considered very valuable under normal circumstances,” reads a decision by a Nova Scotia appeal tribunal.
But with the artifacts throwing the property’s future into limbo, “the value will be set at $1 until the future use of the Mi’kmaq artifacts is determined,” it read.
The rock-bottom assessment — which MacDonald only obtained after several appeals — frees him from paying any property taxes on the beachfront land.
Well now. That’s the housing crisis solved–at least in Nova Scotia. Who says the aboriginal people don’t do us any favours?