If it were only so simple! 1. There are at least 11 crowns: Ottawa is one, plus 10 crown provincials 2. There are Indian nations with growing sovereign powers 3. There are "customs" and "traditions", which in Canada, a nation with no written constitution, carry much force. Otherwise, of course, most of Canadian and U.S. land laws derive from Norman feudalism, as Waterman intimates, but modified by both nations being federations, not a unitary state like England. Even more, the spirit of commerce has trumped feudal vassalage, largely. Thus under King Wm. I it was unthinkable that a foreigner would own land. So we live in a mixed and mixed-up system of laws, indeed. Mason Gaffney