Given the information in the passage, Canadian courts hearing a dispute over movable cultural property between a muse...

shunhe on August 7, 2020

Hi @fdaniel,

Thanks for the question! So this is a long question, let’s break it down. Basically, it’s asking, what are Canadian courts less likely to think is a good reason for deciding a case in favor of a museum, when there’s an argument between a museum and a group of native Canadians over movable cultural property? So what maybe used to be a good reason for finding for the museum, but not anymore?

Well, take a look at lines 45-53. We’re told that native Canadians rarely possess legal documents that “show ownership,” since that wasn’t really part of their culture. Museums, however, used to tend to to have these, and “are thus likely to be recognized as legally entitled to the property they hold” because they have these pieces of paper.

But now look at the following lines, where we’re told that as the Court’s “awareness of the inappropriateness of applying the private property concept to all cultural groups grows, Canadian courts will gradually recognize that native Canadians…can clearly claim ownership as prescribed by the notion of collective property, and that their claims to movable cultural property should be honored” (lines 53-61). So here, we’re basically being told that yeah, the Courts are going to be less likely to care about these pieces of paper, and look at things with an increased recognition of different cultural groups’ conceptions of property.

So now take a look at (D), which tells us that “the group of native Canadians cannot produce written documentation of their claims to ownership of the property.” In the past, this would probably make the Court rule in favor of the museum. But this is supposed to be less of a big deal going into the future as Courts incorporate different cultural perspectives on property. And that’s why (D) is the correct answer, it’s something that won’t be as good a reason in the future for Courts finding for museums.

Hope this helps! Feel free to ask any other questions that you might have.

fdaniel on August 8, 2020

Thank you for the clarification. This was a great breakdown and easy to understand.

shunhe on August 11, 2020

Glad you found it helpful, happy to help!