The Musqueam UEL land claim remains unresolved to date. However, they have been compensated for small portions of the land they have claimed. Was this a result of increased public awareness and the emergence of Truth and Reconciliation? Truth and Reconciliation is a formal apology by the Canadian federal government in the mistreatment of all indigenous peoples by the government. Since Truth and Reconciliation is meant to empower the Musqueam and give their voices back to them, it would be interesting to implement further research to understand how this has affected the power relations between the Musqueam and the Provincial government in more recent land claims. If increased public awareness is the reason for increased compensations, however small they are, this prove our point that telling stories can make significant changes.
Another direction of future research is to look into the financial aspects of the Park’s creation. The Pacific Spirit Park today sits on highly valued land, it has the potential to generate a tremendous amount of profit if developed. In our interview with Thomas Nick, he suggested the Provincial government always favoured the development of the land that makes up the park, that the creation of the park was merely a ploy to create a form of “land bank” for future sales, where both the demand and price of the land would skyrocket. Therefore, it would be interesting to understand the financial relations between organizations such as government, UBC, local residents and so on to understand the flow of the funds between them. Did the government financially benefit from putting the park under the GVRD in any way? Was this move provincial government’s way to avoid compensation for the Musqueam land claim?
Lastly, as we did not have the time to interview the Musqueam, we highly suggest anyone interested in continuation of our research or any projects regarding the Musqueam, or other indigenous peoples, to prioritize speaking to the community. We believe adding the Musqueam’s own words would is necessary for our project. Sitting down and listening to learn their oral history would contribute to the purpose of our project like no other source would.