Juno News - August 14, 2026


B.C.’s MASSIVE land giveaway is happening behind closed doors

Mentioned
Mark Cowichan Carrie Lynn Findlay Scott McGinnis Hatley Castle Scott McInnes David Eby
Canada ramps up deportations of illegal immigrants Our country deserves better than this…

Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

164.88

Word count

1,816

Sentence count

99

Harmful content

Hate speech

2

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00 Well, the B.C. government has revealed plans to transfer a huge parcel of provincial territory
00:00:11 to First Nations groups.
00:00:13 Some estimate the size of the territory to be transferred as being about as big as Portugal,
00:00:18 135,000 hectares.
00:00:21 This post by Carrie Lynn Findlay, leader of the B.C. Conservative Party.
00:00:26 The NDP are taking a pair of scissors to the map of British Columbia, Hatley Castle here,
00:00:33 downtown Victoria here, a chunk of Crown land the size of Portugal there, snip snip.
00:00:38 BC is being dismantled in real time in backroom discussions, and British Columbians have no
00:00:44 say in.
00:00:46 Our guest today is Scott McInnes, conservative MLA from British Columbia for the writing
00:00:51 of Columbia River Revelstoke.
00:00:53 He's the opposition critic for Indigenous relations. 1.00
00:00:57 Welcome, Scott.
00:00:58 Thank you so much, Mark, for having me on today to discuss this.
00:01:01 Maybe you could fill us in on exactly what you think the government of British Columbia
00:01:06 is doing.
00:01:08 That's a really good question, Mark.
00:01:10 And I think myself and my colleagues, and I think a growing segment of the public would
00:01:19 say, we don't know.
00:01:21 That is the issue.
00:01:22 We are seeing agreement after agreement signed between the provincial government
00:01:28 and various First Nations around the province that is being done in back rooms
00:01:33 without informing the public, without consultation with local government.
00:01:39 And what we're seeing here is a massive transfer of wealth and land and executive power
00:01:46 without, we don't think, a mandate to do so.
00:01:50 I mean, certainly the BC NDP did not campaign in October 2024 to head down a path that they see
00:01:58 reconciliation happening in this manner. So our job in opposition right now is to draw attention
00:02:05 to this for the public, because these are very, very serious issues that are taking place. And
00:02:10 we certainly believe that what I call the NDP is pursuing is a reconciliation behind an iron
00:02:17 curtain. So it's very important that we draw attention to a complex set of issues for the
00:02:23 public and make it digestible because it's ultimately very consequential. Yeah, I would say
00:02:29 so. I mean, it suggests to me that Premier Eby knows he's not going to get reelected. I mean,
00:02:36 this is what you do when you don't care how unpopular your policy is with voters. You know
00:02:43 what I mean? Does it strike you as being like that? Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it gets a sense
00:02:49 of that, that there's a bit of a policy of kind of ramming through as many of these as possible
00:02:54 on your way out the door. But I also firmly believe that, you know, just ideologically
00:03:00 entrenched within this government is, you know, a pretty radical land back set of policies and
00:03:06 legislation. So, you know, it could look like they're trying to do this as they step away. But
00:03:12 I firmly believe that they would be doing this anyway.
00:03:17 Oh, okay.
00:03:17 So you don't think this is a case of, I'm leaving anyway, so I might as well do what
00:03:22 I know people don't want, because they're going to be up in arms over it.
00:03:28 But this is a massive chunk of territory, and yet we know very little about it.
00:03:32 I mean, why do you suppose there's been so little said by the Premier about this?
00:03:38 Well, I think the answer to that is a very simple one, and that's because the public
00:03:42 wouldn't be in support of it. You know, the government keeps defending a nation-to-nation
00:03:48 negotiations and a relationship, and that the public shouldn't be involved because that's
00:03:53 the framework. And, you know, we have to say, well, excuse me, but, you know, what you're
00:03:58 pursuing has massive impacts on the public interest. And it is absolutely incumbent on
00:04:04 the Crown to include the public in those discussions, which the NDP is certainly not
00:04:09 doing. And I think, you know, since the Cowichan decision from last August in 2025, the public is
00:04:14 slowly waking up and able to digest. Again, these are very, very complicated issues. When we're
00:04:20 talking about subjects like, you know, Aboriginal title, DRIPA, these kinds of things, you know,
00:04:26 up until about a year and a half ago, it just sort of flew over the public's head because it's very
00:04:30 complicated. But now I think the public is going, hold on a second here. I didn't sign up for this
00:04:35 kind of, you know, set of policies from the government that I elected. And, you know,
00:04:40 you're certainly seeing David Eby when we raise it, getting his hand, you know, caught in the
00:04:44 proverbial cookie jar a little bit. I'm surprised there isn't more pushback from what is within his
00:04:50 own caucus or members who are going to run again. And they look at this as being a major impediment
00:04:57 in terms of getting re-elected.
00:04:59 Are you hearing much disgruntled talk from, say, the back benches of the government?
00:05:09 No, Mark, and I would actually argue that it's the opposite.
00:05:12 I think there are members of the NDP caucus who are probably even more progressively radical
00:05:18 on these issues than the Premier himself.
00:05:20 We saw that clearly when the Premier tried to bring forward changes to a piece of legislation
00:05:26 in British Columbia called the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act that he had
00:05:30 very serious issues with his caucus colleagues saying, don't you dare touch this. So I certainly
00:05:37 don't think there is pushback. In fact, I think there's probably a sentiment in that caucus to
00:05:43 say, push things along a little bit faster. If this becomes a reality and then your party ends
00:05:51 up in government. Is there any way to roll back this massive giveaway of territory?
00:05:59 Well, we have a complicated set of issues in British Columbia. Unlike, you know, the rest of
00:06:05 the country, generally speaking, British Columbia was not settled by historic treaties. And, you
00:06:11 know, there is a constitutional obligation to look out for the rights of Indigenous people in this
00:06:18 in this nation and in this province. And, you know, what our mandate would be is certainly
00:06:23 number one, uh, is to include the public in a, in a, let's call it a refreshed relationship with
00:06:29 First Nations. One is the one that is balanced and that number two always has the public interest,
00:06:35 uh, at the forefront. And I, I certainly see a void in that from this NDP government. And I'll
00:06:41 give you one example, Mark, if I may, in the area that we've been discussing in the Northwest,
00:06:46 with the Taltan First Nation. It's a very, very mineral-rich region of British Columbia. Copper,
00:06:53 gold, several other precious metals, and some big projects up there. The government is signing
00:06:58 what are called Section 7 Agreements under the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 0.96
00:07:02 Act, which essentially gives the nation permission or a gatekeeper responsibility to allow these
00:07:10 projects to go ahead or not. In lieu of that, we are seeing, you know, a mineral tax revenue share
00:07:17 between the provincial government and the local First Nation of essentially 50-50. So we struggle
00:07:22 to see as opposition, and I think again, this is becoming very clear to the public, how is it
00:07:28 balanced and fair and in the public interest when you give half of, you know, a mine's mineral tax
00:07:35 revenue to 3,000 people, and the other 5.7 million British Columbians have to share the rest.
00:07:42 So these are the kind of things we are going to be reviewing. Again, with the public interest
00:07:48 always at the forefront of our decision making. I mean, do you anticipate that there will be an
00:07:53 election in the near future? What's your sense of that? That's a good question, Mark. I mean,
00:08:01 we're not scheduled for an election until October of 2028. But things could change anytime. I mean,
00:08:06 that is squarely in the hands of the government. I'm assuming that they are looking at things very
00:08:13 carefully and seeing, you know, if they see an opportunity that this is the best chance they
00:08:18 may have to win a second, you know, consecutive mandate here following October 2024, that they
00:08:24 may go ahead and do it. But, you know, I certainly don't know. We are always ready at any time to go
00:08:30 into an election as the opposition. And that firmly, that decision lands squarely with the
00:08:35 government. And what's your sense of how people are thinking about this? I mean, you've been
00:08:43 able to take the pulse of people in your area, for instance. Is there a sense that people are
00:08:49 feeling that maybe their own property rights are being eroded? I mean, forget the handover of
00:08:55 territory, there's a sense that people's homes aren't their homes anymore because there could
00:09:02 be a land claim that undermines and pulls the rug out from under them. Do you get that sense?
00:09:08 Yeah, well, certainly, Mark, in any riding, you're going to have a mixed perspective. There are
00:09:13 people that support the NDP and their policies that are headed down this pathway, and there
00:09:18 are those that are strongly opposed to it. I know for me, one thing that is really important that
00:09:24 I've shared with my caucus colleagues and delivered to the legislature, when you're
00:09:27 talking about private property and the relationship between private property and what's called
00:09:32 aboriginal title, I've put a piece of legislation on the, on the floor of the, the legislative
00:09:38 assembly in British Columbia that is going to force government to disclose exactly where
00:09:43 these claims of aboriginal title either exist before the courts or are under active negotiation
00:09:49 with the government because at this moment we don't know and the government is not willing to
00:09:54 disclose that. That information is behind lock and key with the Attorney General's office and we
00:09:59 certainly don't believe that you know that's fair for British Columbians if somebody had essentially
00:10:04 moved here or has a generational piece of property that they don't know if that claim exists. Again
00:10:09 that's not to point fingers at anybody but I mean I was at the town hall in Richmond following the
00:10:17 Cowichan decision last fall. And the number one issue I heard from residents there is we did not
00:10:24 know this was happening. So I think a good starting point here is to have, again, this
00:10:30 curtain pulled back so the public can understand where are these active claims happening, and then
00:10:35 people can proceed from there as they see fit. All right. Scott McGinnis, thank you so much for
00:10:42 coming on the show. We appreciate it. Always a pleasure. Thanks, Mark.
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00:10:58 Thank you so much for tuning in. We'll see you next time.