Juno News - PRIVATE property now INDIGENOUS land？ B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad responds

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is the Candace Malcolm Show. We have a great episode for you

00:00:05.140 today, folks. We are joined by John Rudsett, leader of the BC Conservatives, in just a minute.

00:00:10.180 And also, this episode is sponsored by Unsmoke, but more on them a little later. I want to start

00:00:14.860 by talking about an issue in the news, and I'm going to bring this up with John in a moment,

00:00:19.100 and that is a bombshell judgment that was released by BC's Supreme Court. So you might

00:00:23.980 have seen Carolyn Elliott on X posting on Friday, bombshell judgment released by BC's Supreme Court

00:00:28.880 declaring Aboriginal title over land enrichment, including private property. If it stands,

00:00:33.420 it has massive implications for private property across BC. She says, read for it for yourself.

00:00:39.220 I'm going to read a little bit from a Globe and Mail report. The headline says,

00:00:43.400 major land claims ruling, says BC Indigenous groups, has claimed to a portion of the city's

00:00:48.460 port land. So Vancouver First Nations has won a major court victory, with the judge declaring it

00:00:53.440 has title to a portion of land in the Vancouver area that includes currently active industrial

00:00:58.360 operations on the Fraser River. Justice Barbara Young of the BC Supreme Court declared that the

00:01:03.600 Cowichan tribes have established Aboriginal title to roughly 800 acres in the city of Richmond,

00:01:09.920 as well as Aboriginal right to fish and food. Her 863-page ruling from a trial that stretched

00:01:17.580 513 days over five years from 2021 to 2023 was issued Thursday and published online Friday.

00:01:24.400 The court ruling in what was billed as the longest trial in Canada's history, no kidding,

00:01:29.960 represents a milestone in the country's continual societal and legal reckoning of Indigenous

00:01:34.440 reconciliation. The decision follows a line of similarly important rulings, and there will

00:01:40.160 almost certainly be legal arguments and appellate cases. I hope so. I hope that there are challenges

00:01:45.080 to this case because it is truly disturbing and unsettling, folks.

00:01:49.640 You see the land back activists, people demanding land back, saying that this is unseated land,

00:01:55.420 you know, those land acknowledgements that we're forced to hear any time there's a public

00:01:59.860 press conference now from politicians, all saying that Canada is basically an illegitimate country

00:02:04.880 and that the land actually belongs to the First Nations. Well, this court ruling is legalizing that,

00:02:11.040 is putting precedent into that, saying that yes, First Nations have title to the land and they can take it

00:02:17.260 back if they prove their case really interesting. Not only that, I'm going to read a little bit more

00:02:23.320 from this Globe and Mail report. There are three different First Nations groups or bands that all

00:02:29.380 have claims over the same part of land in Richmond, and they're pitted against each other. So I'm going

00:02:35.980 to read a little here. It says the Cowichan tribes case, like many before it, is particularly complicated.

00:02:41.160 It says that the case pitted regional Indigenous groups against each other. The Cowichan are based on

00:02:44.760 Vancouver Island, but in centuries past had an annual summer village on the Fraser River, or so they

00:02:50.640 claim, and that is where they fish for salmon. The Musqueam and Tawasin tribes have long lived around

00:02:56.680 Fraser River in the BC's Lower Mainland. The Musqueam upset over the court ruling on Friday morning.

00:03:01.760 They called it devastating and said it impacts their own title and fishing rights. The land in question

00:03:06.100 is within Musqueam's traditional and unseated territory, writes the Globe and Mail. Chief Wayne Sparrow said in a

00:03:12.500 statement that Musqueam are extremely disappointed that the Cowichan would go against our shared

00:03:17.460 Salish Coast protocols. It was emotional. I want to read just a little bit more. It says the Cowichan

00:03:23.100 claim involved 1,800 acres, and the court declared title on roughly 40% of that. There are some privately

00:03:29.780 held properties. This is important, but lawyers involved in the case say that if the ruling stands,

00:03:34.720 that land would not be affected until the properties are sold. So you can keep your land for now,

00:03:39.120 but you lose all value and all equity because when you sell it, it's not going to be yours.

00:03:44.120 Justice Young declared that the land titles held by Canada and Richmond to be defective and invalid.

00:03:50.200 Defective and invalid. So the property to your home and to your land, well, a judge may declare that

00:03:55.040 that that is defective and invalid, and therefore you don't actually have title to your land.

00:03:59.860 Again, from the Globe and Mail piece, it says if the Cowichan's win is upheld in future appeals,

00:04:03.780 they could eventually take control of the land in question and use it as they see fit. Justice

00:04:09.820 Young, a decade-long veteran of the court, suspended the declaration on land titles for 18 months so the

00:04:15.860 Cowichan federal government and city of Richmond will have the opportunity to make necessary

00:04:19.400 arrangements. Much more remains, she writes. And then she continued to say that a period to allow

00:04:25.720 for an orderly transition of lands is in keeping with the principle of reconciliation. Did you get

00:04:31.800 that? The principle of reconciliation means an orderly transition of the lands. So for all those

00:04:39.300 people calling for reconciliation, all of the focus on that, at least for the land-backed people and

00:04:44.460 the, what I consider extreme radicals in this position, reconciliation means an orderly transition

00:04:51.640 of the lands. This is unbelievable, the direction that we're heading. I want to read a little bit from

00:04:57.780 a legal blog. This is written by University of Saskatchewan's law professor Dwight Newman. He

00:05:04.140 writes the less certain future of private lands in British Columbia and basically just says that

00:05:10.980 the judgment has a much broader implication that any privately owned lands in BC may be subject to

00:05:19.460 being overridden by aboriginal titles. So yes, that is exactly what this means. Now I'm going to bring

00:05:25.580 John Rudd said on in just a second because as reported by Juno News, he wants an urgent appeal

00:05:31.780 of the aboriginal title ruling which threatens public policy. But first, I want to thank our sponsor of

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00:06:07.580 cigarettes. The evidence is there. The tools exist. Canadians should have the freedom to know about

00:06:11.480 them. Learn more at unsmoke.ca. Okay, I'm very pleased now to be joined by John Rudd said he is the

00:06:18.800 leader of the B.C. Conservatives. Rudd said served as leader of the official opposition since 2024

00:06:23.420 when the B.C. Conservatives narrowly lost that election, winning 44 seats, losing by just one

00:06:28.680 seat. It was an incredibly close election under Rudd's leadership of the Conservative Party's had

00:06:33.340 its best showing in over 70 years. So welcome, John. Thank you so much for joining us.

00:06:39.020 Thank you for having me on.

00:06:40.340 Okay, well, first of all, I want you to comment on this bombshell landmark ruling and what it means

00:06:46.440 for the people of British Columbia and more specifically, property owners in British

00:06:50.980 Columbia? Yeah, this is a huge decision. When you look at a court case that finds title underneath

00:06:57.440 private land, the reality for all of us as Canadians, as British Columbians is they are too

00:07:04.060 are incompatible. Indigenous rights, Indigenous title cannot coexist with private property rights. 0.51

00:07:10.280 In your private property rights, for example, you have the right to put up a fence and say

00:07:14.680 no trespassing, right? It's your private property. You can use it for the things that you want

00:07:19.500 to do. But when it comes to Indigenous rights and Indigenous title, Indigenous population have 0.99

00:07:25.480 the right to use property, to use land, to carry on with traditional ways, and there's nothing

00:07:32.760 you can do to stop it because of those rights. So the two are in direct conflict and really

00:07:38.980 cannot coexist and should not coexist on the land. And so this has created a huge problem. And I

00:07:45.560 talked to some of the homeowners that are impacted by this particular case, and they're concerned

00:07:51.540 about their future. They ask, like this one lady I talked to, single mom, this is her life savings she 1.00

00:07:57.000 put into buying this piece. And she's wondering now, have I lost my life savings? What does this mean?

00:08:02.480 Do I have rights anymore? They're worried about how will this impact the value of their property?

00:08:08.820 So there's a huge number of questions that are outstanding on this issue. But I think it's more

00:08:15.780 than that as well. It's the precedent that is being set here for the whole province, quite frankly,

00:08:20.260 the country. But it follows on the heels of some legislation that the NDP put forward in British

00:08:27.180 Columbia on the Haida, on the Haida Islands, where they actually define title on the entire

00:08:32.940 islands, including underneath private property and infrastructure. And so they set the precedent,

00:08:38.740 and now the court case here has now confirmed that this could exist anywhere in the province.

00:08:45.280 And in British Columbia, 120% of British Columbia is claimed by First Nations. So you better believe 1.00

00:08:50.280 all private land across this province could now potentially be subject to having an indigenous title

00:08:55.860 underneath their private property. Well, from the Globe and Mail report that I read from,

00:09:00.180 you could tell that the individual bands don't even agree with each other, right? This was given

00:09:04.140 to the Cowichan Band, which is a Vancouver Island band. Of course, Richmond's not in Vancouver Island,

00:09:08.940 and it's got competing claims from the Musqueam and the Tawassan. And so, I mean, it's even,

00:09:14.260 it's hard to kind of comprehend. I want to bring it back to the private property comment that you made,

00:09:18.580 because in this Globe and Mail article, it says that there are some privately held properties,

00:09:23.800 but lawyers involved in the case said that if the ruling stands, that land would not be affected

00:09:27.940 until it was sold, until it was sold. So meaning that the value that you would have the equity in

00:09:34.400 your home or in your land that you were planning to use as your retirement nest egg or pass on to

00:09:39.400 your children when you pass away, that's basically gone. Because when you try to sell it, no one's going to want

00:09:43.860 to buy land that is held, that a court is ruled, is going to be held by the First Nations. I mean,

00:09:49.820 how would you assure any private property owners or anyone considering buying a home in British

00:09:55.120 Columbia that this couldn't happen to them next? Well, that's why this should never happen.

00:09:59.500 Private property and infrastructure should never, ever be on the table for a title declaration,

00:10:05.840 whether that's by court or whether that's by negotiation. But really, when you wind this case

00:10:09.860 back, this started in 2019. David Eby was the Attorney General. At that particular point,

00:10:15.480 they should have recognized the risk that this would have had for private property owners and sat

00:10:20.260 down and negotiated a settlement and dealt with this as opposed to allowing this to get to this stage.

00:10:26.480 And really, this government has completely thrown private property rights, private property ownership

00:10:32.060 onto the bus. Think about the chill that this will put on British Columbia and from an investment

00:10:37.600 perspective. If you want to build housing, or if you want to put in a warehouse and put in some

00:10:43.000 manufacturing, or if you want to build a mine, or any type of activity that's now in the land base,

00:10:48.420 you no longer have any certainty that the private property you're trying to build on could be,

00:10:55.440 state could remain private property. It may not down the road. And so the other interesting piece of

00:11:01.140 this is, of course, in the Haida legislation, what it says is that with Indigenous title,

00:11:08.100 Indigenous law can apply. And so what does that mean? How does Indigenous law potentially impact or even

00:11:15.860 override your private property rights? Could they put taxation in place? Could they say what you can

00:11:21.940 and can't do with the property? And of course, you have no ability to vote for that government because

00:11:27.100 that's an Indigenous government. And so if it was taxation, for example, that would be, you know, taxation

00:11:31.980 without representation. So there's a whole lot of question marks. And this, like I say, this case should

00:11:37.660 never, ever have gotten to court. It should have been resolved outside in terms of negotiation. But now that

00:11:43.480 it's there, the government of the day, the NDP government needs to clearly define what they are going to be

00:11:48.880 fighting for in terms of defending private property rights.

00:11:52.100 Well, 100%. I think a lot of people will say that this is all sort of downstream from the United

00:11:57.860 Nations declaration on the rights of the Indigenous people known as UNDRIP. There was another case

00:12:02.300 in British Columbia that came out earlier this month in August, August 9th. This is from the CBC.

00:12:07.340 Okanagan Falls may need to change its name in order to become BC's newest municipality. So basically,

00:12:14.040 according to UNDRIP, one of the things that it requires is that First Nations have the right to

00:12:21.560 designate and name their own communities, places and people. And so because of this,

00:12:26.060 Okanagan Falls may have to rename. I mean, we've seen a lot of this, John, in British Columbia where

00:12:31.420 places have had to rename. Look, I grew up in BC. Back when I grew up, we used to call it the Queen

00:12:36.220 Charlotte Islands. I know it's Haida Gwaii now, technically. But we see these kinds of stories

00:12:40.800 all the time, including recently Trutch Street in Vancouver was given a new name that I wouldn't even

00:12:45.480 try to pronounce because I think it's unpronounceable. What do you make of these changes?

00:12:51.060 And what do you make of UNDRIP more broadly?

00:12:54.520 Well, as the Conservative Party of British Columbia, we are committed to repealing the DRIPA legislation,

00:12:58.800 the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People Act. It doesn't make sense. Any legislation

00:13:03.800 that gives rights to one group of people over another will never end well because ultimately

00:13:10.940 it creates friction, it creates resentment. It is the opposite of reconciliation. And reconciliation

00:13:16.700 should be the goal of what we're trying to do. So DRIPA is something that we would repeal

00:13:21.320 and remove in British Columbia to get away from this case, for example, that could happen

00:13:27.180 in the Okanagan Falls area. The other piece, though, is there are values in UNDRIP that are

00:13:33.380 worth using when we work with First Nations as a guiding principle, but that's what it should

00:13:37.080 be. It shouldn't be legislation and using it as this hammer. So I think, you know, I don't

00:13:44.980 have a problem with renaming, you know, for example, the Sadish Sea or Haida Gwaii, these

00:13:50.260 types of things. But when it comes to, you know, many other things, look, we need to make,

00:13:56.080 we need to understand that in British Columbia, Indigenous people are somewhere between four

00:14:00.040 and 5% of the population. And we need to be able to respect rights, but we also need to

00:14:04.960 be able to respect the rights of all British Columbians. And we're all Canadians. So we

00:14:09.680 need to make sure that what we are doing is reflecting all of us in terms of our true history

00:14:16.500 and quite frankly, what is our what our future needs to be.

00:14:19.340 Look, I want to push back just a little bit about the renaming. Like I understand that obviously

00:14:24.340 British Columbia was inhabited before the Europeans came and that some of the names come from Indigenous

00:14:29.780 words. I mean, even Okanagan, it's not an English word, right? It's clearly derived from a different

00:14:36.040 language. But what I see often now, John, it almost feels like it's deliberately confusing

00:14:42.720 to people that you cannot pronounce the words. It's not written in an alphabet that's recognizable.

00:14:48.080 And so with the case of Trutch Street getting renamed and then the signs that were unveiled,

00:14:52.220 you can imagine in an emergency situation, someone's trying to call for help and they can't pronounce

00:14:56.660 the words. And it seems to me that that is done intentionally to confuse or to alienate people.

00:15:02.880 And I just don't understand why they have to introduce a new alphabet. English and French

00:15:07.760 are the official languages of Canada. So why would you rename streets and cities and places into words

00:15:14.060 with an alphabet that we don't we don't recognize?

00:15:16.720 Yeah, you know, the interesting thing is when it comes to Indigenous languages in British Columbia,

00:15:21.660 we've got, I think, it's 64 different dialects, 32 different languages with Indigenous people.

00:15:28.720 They didn't have a written language. And so when they're trying to translate how to pronounce words

00:15:36.340 that cannot be easily spelt in the English language or the English dialect,

00:15:42.540 they're trying to figure out how do you actually spell that. So they've tried to come up with an alphabet

00:15:47.740 that is English, it is what we use. But it also is supplemented to reflect the sounds

00:15:56.840 that they use as part of their naming. So you're right, there needs to be clear cases where something

00:16:05.660 like that can work and something that makes sense and some places where it doesn't.

00:16:09.400 A street name, you know, for example, if the street name is on a reserve, in that type of thing,

00:16:19.300 in many places around the province, it has a First Nations name. If you're talking about,

00:16:24.620 you know, Main Street down the middle of a city, really, is that kind of what you would need to be

00:16:29.420 doing with the names? But, you know, in terms of a street that might be directly attached with

00:16:34.220 First Nations territory within a First Nations reserve, I don't have a problem with that kind

00:16:39.620 of a sort of name changing. Now, there is some issues. Yeah, there's no question there's going

00:16:44.320 to be issues in terms of it. But that's part of what we need to be thinking about also in terms

00:16:49.080 of reconciliation. And I'll just give you an example from my home community, Prince George.

00:16:53.500 I was born and raised in Prince George. There was a park that was there, it was called Fort George

00:16:58.220 Park. Well, that used to be a Claytonay community. And they were forced out of that community and 1.00

00:17:07.000 relocated to a community further upriver. And so when it came to looking at reconciliation,

00:17:14.400 they made a decision, the city made a decision to rename that park Claytonay Park. And there was

00:17:19.360 a whole bunch of people that were opposed to it and concerned about it. So why would we do this

00:17:24.880 until they learned the history? And then they went, Oh, okay, wait a second here. Maybe this

00:17:29.280 makes sense. And so, you know, reconciliation is not an easy path to be walked. But once again,

00:17:36.780 when you look at it, you got to think, how does this impact people on a day to day life? In

00:17:40.700 particular, this is why the private property infrastructure, why that all sort of issues

00:17:45.020 are such a big issue, because now you're talking about seriously impacting people's day to day lives

00:17:51.080 and building their future. Yeah, well, you certainly raise a good point about reconciliation

00:17:56.180 and the idea is, you know, creating a future where we can live and coexist in peace. But sometimes

00:18:02.340 you see things in the news and online, John, make you concerned about whether we're actually heading

00:18:07.280 in that direction. This was something that I posted on social media, the Adams Lake Indian Band put up a

00:18:14.660 sign recently that said no trespassing, no illegal activities, and no settlers. And I see that as very

00:18:22.100 inflammatory language and saying that certain people based on their skin color or their heritage

00:18:27.600 are not allowed in other parts of the province or of their community. I mean, that's, that's

00:18:34.140 concerning. Look, I spent some time in high school in Campbell River, and sometimes would go on to the

00:18:38.980 native reserves to visit friends or meet up with people or, you know, just just to drop by and say

00:18:43.880 hi to someone. And the fact that they would erect a sign like this in Adams Lake saying no settlers,

00:18:48.300 I don't know how strictly that's enforced. But it's a sign that when I saw it made me feel really

00:18:52.780 uncomfortable. I wonder if you can comment on that. Yeah, I agree. It makes me really feel really

00:18:56.820 uncomfortable. It's the opposite of what reconciliation should be. It just is. You know, we need to

00:19:02.900 recognize that this is Canada. And even though, you know, Indigenous people might have been here for 10,000

00:19:07.960 years, they still have came here from somewhere else, just like everybody in this country.

00:19:13.260 They came here from somewhere else. And we need to recognize what we've built as a country. And I 1.00

00:19:18.000 think the other thing is we need to understand Canada's history. I mean, if Canada wasn't here

00:19:23.040 as a country, what would have happened? The Americans probably would have come up here and done the same

00:19:27.800 thing that they did in their country, which is declare them a sovereign nation, bring in the army,

00:19:33.560 attack them, wipe them out and conquer the area. And so Canada, in a way, is the whole reason why

00:19:40.500 many First Nations rights have even been protected and exist today. And so this is why we need to

00:19:46.400 think about this as Canada and British Columbia. And we need to understand that this is part of

00:19:52.500 reconciliation, how we bring this together and have that understanding, because there's resentment,

00:19:57.740 there's issues on both sides of the border, or both sides of the issue. I looked at, for example,

00:20:02.620 in the Okanagan, there's a beach in the Okanagan that is beside a First Nations reserve. And there's

00:20:09.680 a sign on the beach saying, Indians only. And I looked at that, I'd like that hugely offensive to

00:20:17.380 me, that that's a public beach, you know, that the foreshore is crown land, it's not owned by an

00:20:25.360 indigenous band. And to put up a sign like that, first of all, I mean, it's racist. But second of

00:20:30.520 all, it has that potential, that connotation about, you know, one group versus another, I thought the

00:20:37.520 whole idea is that we're Canadians, we're trying to find a way to reconcile, and to become one.

00:20:43.180 But this is also a huge problem with our Constitution, like our Constitution has created many of these

00:20:48.640 problems and issues we have today. When the Constitution came in 1982, and we had Section 35, which is what

00:20:54.160 has enshrined, indigenous rights, which includes title, it was defined at the time as being this

00:21:01.060 empty vessel of law that the courts would fill. Well, I think what we're seeing now, particularly

00:21:05.740 with this case now of the Okanagan, and what we've seen through this is, maybe that has gone a little

00:21:12.000 too far. Maybe we need to be rethinking how to address this, to be able to make sure that we

00:21:17.760 recognize and respect and reconcile the indigenous people, the people that were here before us,

00:21:24.160 but also the rights of all Canadians, and how those things come together.

00:21:29.060 Well, I think that would be a much better path forward to focus on the positive things that

00:21:33.960 the friendships, the treaties, the partnerships that were formed between the early Canadians and

00:21:38.660 the First Nations, instead of dwelling so much on the things that we've focused on. Okay, John,

00:21:44.900 I want to move on a little bit to talk about your opponent, David Eby, and his record in government.

00:21:49.960 So BC's debt has been skyrocketing in the first two years, this is in the Vancouver Sun, basically

00:21:55.840 saying that they have increased provincial debt by almost 50% in almost two years, just two years in

00:22:01.040 office, Eby inherited provincial debt of $89 billion a year. And at the end of his first year,

00:22:06.940 it had soared to $133 billion, up $44 billion. What would you do differently?

00:22:11.280 Well, this has been absolute insane spending by this government, especially when it comes to the

00:22:18.200 operating from the actual budget, as opposed to the capital side. And so they've gone from what

00:22:27.060 was about a $5 or $6 billion surplus to what a lot of people were estimating saying would be an $18

00:22:33.160 billion deficit in just over two years. How do you destroy the finances of this province so quickly

00:22:41.600 and have nothing to show for it? Nobody can point to anything in this province that is better

00:22:47.180 under the NDP. Anything, whether it's crime, whether it's drugs, whether it's housing,

00:22:51.860 whether it's affordability, whether it's our economy, nothing is improving. And so it really

00:22:56.360 makes you wonder how and where they're spending this money. And you look at our capital, yes, we need

00:23:01.040 to invest in roads and we had to invest in hospitals and schools. The budget, the amount of capital that

00:23:08.420 is allocated this year for capital projects is the equivalent of all the cost overruns on the

00:23:15.880 projects that they're running. So this has been just incompetence in terms of how they're actually

00:23:21.880 getting projects done and the way they spend money. And there isn't a single thing. They've been in power

00:23:27.980 for eight years now, not going on the ninth year. There isn't a single project that's actually

00:23:32.860 completed in terms of highways or bridges or anything like that. Everything is still a work

00:23:36.900 in progress. And you look at it and think, how could this be that nothing could have gotten done

00:23:41.860 over that period of time? Well, you mentioned crime and we have some statistics here. Violent offenders in

00:23:47.620 BC, why Canada's catch and release bails are failing. So Vancouver recorded 6,256 violent

00:23:53.040 crimes in 2023, including 4,900 assaults, a rise of 451 incidents compared to 2019. The data shows that

00:24:01.000 basically these policies where they can't keep bad guys behind bars is obviously failing all Canadians

00:24:08.980 and particularly in British Columbia. So I'm wondering if you can comment on, again, the crime rules and

00:24:13.320 what you would do differently. So in this province, for whatever reason, the judges and our crown

00:24:20.420 prosecution has decided they don't want to put people in jail. We've got, for example, this youth

00:24:24.600 correction center that I've heard from. They have a capacity of 46 people. They have typically between

00:24:31.700 four and six people in there with that capacity. So you kind of look at it and you think, well, we're not

00:24:37.620 committing less crime. How is it that we're not utilizing these facilities for what they need to be used for?

00:24:43.320 We need some significant change in British Columbia, and I think quite frankly, likely in Canada, but

00:24:48.620 certainly in British Columbia when it comes to dealing with crime. And the approach that we're

00:24:52.640 going to take on it is, first of all, we're going to push for guaranteed minimum sentencing. And this is

00:24:57.520 especially targeted at these prolific offenders. The police tell me that 70% of the crime is being

00:25:04.100 committed by 30% of the criminals. And so when you look at that, there are so many of these people

00:25:09.420 people that should be behind bars. And we just, we seem to be treating them all like they're the

00:25:15.960 same. Like they might be 30, 50, a hundred different infractions, interactions with the

00:25:21.800 police, and yet they're still out on the streets. And so what we'll do, we'll push for guaranteed

00:25:25.600 minimum sentencing. We've got to push for bail reform. Those are federal. And so we need to be

00:25:31.040 pushing for those. But what we can do in provincially is we can actually use the Mental Health Act if we had to.

00:25:36.500 And so we want to change the court system so that there's a streamlined process for these

00:25:41.920 prolific offenders. They get into the courts immediately instead of having to wait a year

00:25:46.260 or two years or sometimes getting thrown out because they don't have the ability to get to court.

00:25:50.480 We've got to do that. But where we have these prolific offenders, particularly these prolific

00:25:53.980 violent offenders, if the courts will not put them behind bars where they need to be,

00:25:59.000 then we're going to have to look at using things like the Mental Health Act because that's the only tool 0.51

00:26:02.520 we have as a province. So if somebody's at risk of harming themselves or others, they can be held

00:26:08.640 and treated and not released until they're no longer a risk. And we might have to start looking

00:26:14.500 at that. And here's, he'll become the rub. Of course, there'll be a Section 7 challenge from the

00:26:18.800 Charter because you're taking away their rights. And we may have to use the notwithstanding clause

00:26:23.260 if need be, because we need to get these people off our streets enough of protecting the criminals' 0.81

00:26:30.540 rights. We need to start protecting the citizens' rights so that they can be safe once again in our

00:26:35.440 streets.

00:26:36.280 A hundred percent. And honestly, I think it's a compassionate thing to do because so many of

00:26:39.900 the people that you see on the streets suffering out in the open using drugs, they also have mental

00:26:45.400 health issues. And that's something that's sort of often ignored by the progressive side of things.

00:26:51.060 John, I know you are undergoing a leadership review for your party, which wraps up in September,

00:26:55.400 and then you have an AGM that is coming up in the fall. So I'm wondering if you could tell us a

00:27:00.480 little bit about that process.

00:27:02.240 Sure. Well, actually, the AGM is not out for a little while here yet. But yes, the leadership

00:27:06.960 process is going on throughout the province. And this is standard for any political party in terms

00:27:12.880 of a leadership review that needs to be done. Our old constitution said that every year there had to

00:27:17.880 be a leadership review, regardless of whatever the circumstance was, and it was to be done

00:27:21.560 online where people got a chance to vote by email or whatever the case may be. We looked at it and

00:27:26.540 went, that's not really a very, first of all, it's not stability, but it's not a right way to do it.

00:27:33.880 And so we decided we would give people an in-person opportunity to vote as to whether or not they

00:27:40.120 like the leadership of the party. They like the pledge that I've put forward in terms of our

00:27:45.280 priorities as a party and as a leader. And we'll see how that process goes. But I've been touring

00:27:52.480 throughout the province and meeting with members right across British Columbia, and people are

00:27:58.060 quite happy with what we're doing. They like the direction that we're going. Most people are like,

00:28:02.940 they certainly wish we had won the last election. We're 257 votes away from us being government as

00:28:10.360 opposed to them being government. It was that tight an election. But yeah, so the process is

00:28:15.260 ongoing. We'll know by the end of September what the will of the members of the party is.

00:28:21.040 Great. Well, we look forward to having you back and hopefully you can tell us more about the update

00:28:26.540 from the AGM and continue. I mean, it's wild how close that election was in BC. Reminds you folks how

00:28:33.020 important it is to get out there and vote. That's John Rudd said, leader of the BC Conservative Party.

00:28:38.080 Thank you for your time. All right, folks, thanks so much for tuning in. We'll be back

00:28:41.120 again tomorrow. I'm Candace Malcolm. This is the Candace Malcolm Show. Thank you and God bless.

Juno News - August 13, 2025

PRIVATE property now INDIGENOUS land？ B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad responds

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