The Blueprint: Canada's Conservative Podcast - June 30, 2026


Uncertainty. That is what the current government has left Canadians with.


Episode Stats


Length

22 minutes

Words per minute

164.38

Word count

3,721

Sentence count

260

Harmful content

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprint. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm
00:00:13.100 your host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton Corps at the Lakes with new
00:00:16.520 content for you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time, even throughout the summer.
00:00:21.660 So don't forget to like, comment, subscribe and share this program because on today's
00:00:25.580 show. We are talking about the Cowichan decision out in British Columbia. This has ramifications
00:00:31.780 elsewhere, potentially, so that's why we bring it to your attention. And to get more information,
00:00:36.740 we bring on the one and only Teiko Van Papta, the Member of Parliament for Langley Township,
00:00:42.500 Fraser Heights, also the head of the task force on property rights. Thanks for coming on the show.
00:00:47.120 Good. Thanks, Jimmy, for the invitation. Good to be here.
00:00:49.460 I appreciate you coming on the show because this is such a complex topic that has kind of engulfed British Columbia, I want to say politics, but also kitchen table talk for many.
00:01:02.960 Maybe you can give us like the 30-second elevator pitch.
00:01:08.960 I don't know, not so much a pitch, but an idea for the person tuning in in Nova Scotia, Ontario.
00:01:15.920 What is the Cowichan decision?
00:01:17.720 And what has kind of got people engaged in this topic out in British Columbia?
00:01:22.980 Well, the Cowichan decision, decision of the B.C. Supreme Court in August 2025, so about a year ago,
00:01:30.600 For the first time in Canadian history, a Canadian court declared Aboriginal title over private lands.
00:01:37.700 It's never happened before.
00:01:39.060 People woke up the next morning finding out that their titles were subject to Aboriginal title,
00:01:44.480 and people are wondering, what does that mean?
00:01:48.620 Before I got into politics, I was a real estate development lawyer,
00:01:52.140 and the whole industry banks on title indefeasibility,
00:01:56.940 and today that is being called into question.
00:01:59.860 I never expected to see that happen because in Canada, private property rights has always been secure.
00:02:06.500 At least we thought it was. Today, it is less secure than it was a year ago.
00:02:10.200 And that's what the issue is.
00:02:13.140 When Justice Young of the B.C. Supreme Court says that sections 23 and 25 of the B.C. Land Title Act do not apply,
00:02:21.740 That is the underpinning of private property ownership in that province, which then, to your comment, elevated Aboriginal rights and title that the Cowichan tribe was claiming around the city of Richmond.
00:02:35.580 So there are businesses and homeowners that are affected by this.
00:02:38.700 That's right.
00:02:39.640 And including First Nations themselves.
00:02:42.420 There are two First Nations that are saying, hang on a second, we have interest in this area as well.
00:02:49.420 Absolutely true. 0.61
00:02:50.100 So by saying that Section 23 and 25 of the BC Land Title Act don't apply to Aboriginal title, Justice Young was really saying that where the two compete, Aboriginal title comes out on top.
00:03:04.720 It is a senior and prior interest.
00:03:07.580 And we did not expect that to happen.
00:03:12.160 It was argued that Aboriginal title and fee-simple title cannot coexist on the same land at the same time.
00:03:18.540 She discounted that argument by saying, oh, I think they can coexist because, and she pointed to a decision, sorry, an agreement that had been entered into with the Haida Gwaii Nation up in northern British Columbia, where both the provincial government and the federal government were parties.
00:03:39.180 And that agreement says that aboriginal title, if he's simple title, can coexist.
00:03:45.580 And legal experts are saying that is impossible.
00:03:48.540 Because the Aboriginal title is very similar to fee-simple title. 0.79
00:03:52.560 It gives the holder of it the right to exclusive possession of the land, 0.89
00:03:58.040 the right to profit from the land, the right to decide what to do with the land,
00:04:02.780 just like fee-simple.
00:04:04.100 So how can the two coexist?
00:04:05.860 We say that it does not work.
00:04:08.540 So what we have in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, parts of Ontario,
00:04:15.020 moving eastward from British Columbia,
00:04:17.840 we have a lot of treaties, numbered or otherwise modern.
00:04:21.620 The treaties are engaged,
00:04:23.420 which acts as kind of a finality to the process
00:04:26.480 in a lot of cases.
00:04:27.980 British Columbia really doesn't have any of that going on.
00:04:31.880 You have overlapping claims.
00:04:34.020 You have a bunch, you know,
00:04:36.620 we have over 200 nations in that province.
00:04:40.760 And that is, I think, a major piece of this puzzle, too,
00:04:45.220 is that those negotiations were not held way back when
00:04:50.520 that could have kind of add some certainty
00:04:53.440 to this process that we're dealing with now.
00:04:54.940 Yes, exactly true.
00:04:56.140 So early on in British Columbia's history
00:04:58.280 when it was a colony, but before it became a province,
00:05:01.920 James Douglas was the governor
00:05:04.080 and he entered into some treaties
00:05:06.920 in the southern part of Vancouver Island
00:05:09.980 because Victoria was sort of the center of the universe
00:05:13.300 for the colony.
00:05:15.220 but he didn't enter into treaties like for other parts, right?
00:05:20.680 On the mainland, for example.
00:05:23.080 And British Columbia then entered into Confederation in 1871
00:05:27.000 in that state of ambiguity when it came to indigenous claims.
00:05:32.460 Unlike Alberta and Saskatchewan,
00:05:34.960 and by the way, the northeastern part of British Columbia as well,
00:05:38.180 east of the Rockies, entered into what we call the Number Treaties.
00:05:41.980 And so there's a much higher degree of certainty in that part of Canada and in British Columbia.
00:05:48.040 We are suffering, continuing to suffer from the indecision and the lack of action on the part of James Douglas and successor governors and the province of British Columbia after it became a province.
00:06:03.540 And so today, 2026, we're still sorting out the mess.
00:06:06.900 So we, as an opposition and a party, do agree that treaties, for the most part,
00:06:11.940 are the way forward in a lot of cases.
00:06:13.900 To add some finality to this, to have both sides hopefully walk away happy at the process.
00:06:20.560 Let's queue up Cut One.
00:06:21.680 We have our leader, Pierre Polyev, talking about what we'd like to see
00:06:25.200 with the British Columbia government in their negotiating process,
00:06:28.840 but also the government of Canada, and on how we can, as a party, support future treaties.
00:06:34.700 Play Cut One.
00:06:35.340 I think there are four steps that need to happen immediately.
00:06:38.360 One, we need the federal government, Mark Carney, to change his mind and reverse the directive,
00:06:44.060 making it clear that the federal government's position is that fee-simple property takes priority over all other claims.
00:06:49.460 Two, we need to ensure that all future agreements that the government signs with First Nations
00:06:54.160 clearly and explicitly lay out that fee-simple private property is protected and has seniority over all other title.
00:07:01.040 Three, the Prime Minister must announce a full and comprehensive plan to protect private property rights across British Columbia.
00:07:08.040 It's been almost a year since this ruling.
00:07:10.660 And four, we need to convene a parliamentary committee that will immediately begin study on how we can take political, legal, and constitutional steps necessary to protect people's homes and land.
00:07:21.100 There's a good-looking guy over the leader's shoulder.
00:07:23.320 I don't know if you noticed Takeo, but I just want to point that out.
00:07:27.280 What was directed, number one, the leader, his point?
00:07:30.620 Number one, when he was talking about the directive,
00:07:34.120 explain that to us.
00:07:36.440 Directive 14, what is that?
00:07:37.920 Right, so the Attorney General, as always,
00:07:40.540 would give directives to litigation counsel,
00:07:44.180 and in this case to litigation counsel
00:07:47.000 involved in Aboriginal title claims.
00:07:49.500 And early in this litigation,
00:07:53.080 now the Couching case goes back 10 years.
00:07:55.900 Yeah, one of the longest court cases in Canada.
00:07:58.180 Exactly, right.
00:07:59.100 And early in the process, the federal Crown lawyers argued for extinguishment.
00:08:06.020 Okay, I'm going to ask you to define that in a second, but keep going.
00:08:08.440 Don't lose your thought.
00:08:09.020 And then in 2018, so a couple of years into the litigation, the Attorney General,
00:08:14.540 it was Jody Wilson-Raybould at the time, changed the directives, added directive number 14,
00:08:19.920 which says, do not use extinguishment as an argument.
00:08:22.580 And that really is the most powerful tool for the government to have used to protect private property rights.
00:08:31.040 So I'll explain what extinguishment is.
00:08:33.040 Yeah, while you're doing that, maybe we can pop up the graphic of the city of Richmond mayor talking about protection.
00:08:38.580 So what is extinguishment?
00:08:39.960 So extinguishment is the legal principle that says that the government of Canada or the government of British Columbia
00:08:47.160 has the sovereign authority and power to extinguish Aboriginal title.
00:08:52.580 But the law says that they need to do that clearly, not just by innuendo or by regulation
00:08:59.820 or something like that. 1.00
00:09:00.820 It needs to be a clear intent on the part of the government to extinguish Aboriginal
00:09:04.260 title to the extent that there is Aboriginal title over a specific piece of land. 0.87
00:09:09.240 The argument is that by the Crown granting fee simple parcels to individuals, that act
00:09:17.680 alone was a clear and definitive intent expressed by the government to extinguish any aboriginal
00:09:26.260 title that might be over those lands, because the two cannot coexist.
00:09:29.680 The two cannot coexist.
00:09:30.860 All right, cut two.
00:09:32.100 We have the prime minister in question period trying his past, I think, to explain the government's
00:09:39.100 position on this, which doesn't make much sense.
00:09:41.480 Play cut two.
00:09:42.260 Private property rights are fundamental, and this government, indeed, this House, will always protect them.
00:09:50.720 This government fundamentally disagrees with the B.C. Supreme Court's decision on Cowichan.
00:09:56.700 We immediately appealed that decision alongside the government of B.C., the city of Richmond, and other First Nations.
00:10:04.000 We will always advance viable legal arguments to protect private property.
00:10:10.400 federal agreements including agreements about aboriginal title have always and will always
00:10:17.540 protect private property no modern treaty negotiated agreement or federal approach
00:10:21.300 you're out of the time there okay so the government in 2018 said uh you know we're
00:10:28.520 not going to stick up for private property we're not going to continue that argument
00:10:31.800 now the government's saying well we do stand up for private property rights but
00:10:36.660 the directive still exists. Now that it's gone to appeal, the government can't argue something
00:10:46.680 that it didn't argue the first time, right? Does it use it or lose it, as some of our colleagues
00:10:50.920 have said. So what does that statement mean to you when you heard that? Well, it's very unclear
00:10:56.180 what it means to me. Very complicated. You know, when the Prime Minister uses the adjective
00:11:01.660 To viable arguments, you go, so what does viable mean?
00:11:04.600 I guess extinguishment is not viable because you didn't argue it and that directive is
00:11:08.820 still there not to use it.
00:11:10.380 And you also make the point, Jamie, that an argument that was not used at trial cannot
00:11:18.440 be raised on appeal.
00:11:20.860 Now, it's interesting whether or not a B.C. Court of Appeal is going to consider the extinguishment
00:11:27.780 argument. They may, because Richmond, being one of the defendants, did argue it.
00:11:33.980 Yes, that's right. The only one that stood up for private property.
00:11:38.020 The only one who stood up for private property rights. And I asked some legal experts, I said,
00:11:43.020 so why wouldn't the judge have listened to and been convinced by the arguments advanced by the
00:11:48.760 city of Richmond? And the answer was, well, you know, the judge would have looked at the federal
00:11:54.720 crown and the provincial crown has said, are you arguing for extinguishment? No. Pretty easy to
00:12:00.880 discount an argument from a city government, which is not crown. It's like a private enterprise. It's
00:12:07.120 a creature of the provincial government. So again, we have another misstep by,
00:12:13.220 we'll let the province deal with the provincial team deal with it, but the province messed up too,
00:12:17.760 the federal government messed up too. They had the same directive. Yeah, they had the same
00:12:21.200 directive. So this was all avoidable. Again, the short-sightedness, unfortunately, by this federal
00:12:27.680 government gets us to the point we are at now, and now they're in a bit of a box. But one of the
00:12:33.180 largest property owners in the affected area, let's put up the graphic here, they want a bit of
00:12:38.860 clarification here. Why don't you tell us a bit about that? Because not too long ago, you sat in
00:12:43.960 Victoria, BC in a courtroom that heard about this. So why don't you give us your thoughts on that?
00:12:49.260 Yeah, so Montrose Properties is the largest private land owner that has land within that 800-acre jurisdiction.
00:12:57.880 They have some land on the other side of the street as well.
00:13:00.360 They're a significant land developing company.
00:13:03.240 And they had a project on the subject lands that was shovel-ready, according to Ken Lowe, the proprietor, the CEO.
00:13:13.180 He said it was shovel-ready.
00:13:14.940 They had bank financing in place.
00:13:16.640 They had zoning approvals.
00:13:18.360 they were going to put up a warehouse, a significant warehouse. They had anchor tenants
00:13:24.220 for the warehouse. And the anchor tenants also had their bank financing in place for
00:13:29.180 tenant improvements. And then the decision came down and the banks said, we need to re-look
00:13:35.360 at it. They pulled their funding. The project is, if it's not dead, it's on hold. And so
00:13:42.140 Montrose, it's pretty unusual for somebody to say, oh, sue me too, right? Please join
00:13:47.580 into your lawsuit, right?
00:13:48.600 I want to be a defendant.
00:13:50.200 But Montrose makes a very valid point
00:13:53.200 that if a court is going to make a decision
00:13:55.240 that is going to affect our rights
00:13:57.240 to be able to use our land,
00:13:59.220 absolutely, we want to be part of that lawsuit.
00:14:01.580 We want to argue the points
00:14:03.720 in favor of protecting private property rights
00:14:06.080 that neither the federal AG
00:14:07.880 nor the provincial AG advanced
00:14:09.840 because of this directive
00:14:11.160 that was telling them not to.
00:14:13.360 Yeah, unbelievable.
00:14:14.460 Now the private property owner has to defend themselves at the last second here
00:14:20.860 when the province and the feds just walked away from it.
00:14:24.820 They had the ability to do it and didn't.
00:14:26.520 It is just incredible how we got to this point.
00:14:30.160 Now we have a decision, not a decision, but a Supreme Court.
00:14:36.980 Can I call it a decision? Is that the correct wording?
00:14:39.300 I think it's a decision.
00:14:40.460 Decision not to do something.
00:14:42.200 Yeah, decision not to do something.
00:14:44.460 I wanted to get the correct terms.
00:14:45.680 You're the lawyer.
00:14:46.300 I'm not.
00:14:48.000 So there's a case under British Columbia.
00:14:49.580 I'll let you talk about this because I'm the host.
00:14:51.660 You're the guest.
00:14:52.780 Tell us what was going on in New Brunswick and what the Supreme Court did and how it could potentially affect what's happening in British Columbia.
00:15:02.200 Yeah, thanks for raising that.
00:15:03.300 So at the same time that the Cowichan case was proceeding in British Columbia, there was another case, similar facts, differences, of course.
00:15:14.460 But called Walastakui, if I'm pronouncing that correctly, that's the name of an Indian First Nation who was claiming Aboriginal title over a large piece of land.
00:15:24.700 Almost half the province.
00:15:25.600 Almost half the province, right, of New Brunswick.
00:15:28.860 And they named the Attorney General of Canada as the defendant, rightfully so, and the Attorney General of New Brunswick.
00:15:34.280 But they also named some private landowners, including Irving, the big Irving company, who has significant land holdings there for forestry purposes.
00:15:45.520 Now, the private landowners, before the trial, the trial hasn't even started yet.
00:15:50.860 So as a preliminary application, these private landowners made an application to the judge saying that we are not proper defendants in this case because we are private landowners.
00:16:02.980 and this court will never declare
00:16:05.640 aboriginal title over private lands.
00:16:09.000 The court agreed and said,
00:16:11.440 you don't need to be defendants
00:16:12.820 because we would never do that. 0.99
00:16:14.920 We would never grant aboriginal title
00:16:17.360 over fee simple lands.
00:16:19.020 In the words of one of the judges
00:16:20.360 who set the new grants for the Court of Appeal,
00:16:22.720 he said, that would be the death knell of reconciliation.
00:16:26.220 Right, yes, because reconciliation
00:16:27.560 is both teams coming together, both sides,
00:16:29.500 both groups, whoever you want to call it.
00:16:31.300 Not to push them further apart.
00:16:32.340 And that's exactly what they saw would be happening.
00:16:35.080 It is what is happening in British Columbia.
00:16:36.760 That's right.
00:16:37.300 So the last degree plaintiffs applied for leave to appeal, permission to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
00:16:47.060 We don't have an automatic right to, nobody has an automatic right to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada.
00:16:51.480 They have a very busy agenda.
00:16:53.440 And they, you know, so an application has to be made.
00:16:56.360 Lawyers go get gowned up.
00:16:57.680 They go in front of the judges and they make the case why this case should be appealed.
00:17:04.280 And the judges listen to it.
00:17:06.360 And after giving it some appropriate thought, they said, leave to appeal denied.
00:17:12.900 That's all they say.
00:17:13.980 Why?
00:17:14.860 We don't know.
00:17:15.780 We don't know what's going on in their minds.
00:17:17.720 But legal experts say, you know what?
00:17:19.800 It's the Supreme Court by denying leave to appeal on Woloskoe, if I say that correctly, 1.00
00:17:25.560 is signalling that the New Brunswick Court got it correct. 0.97
00:17:31.140 And by extension of the logic,
00:17:35.480 the British Columbia Court got it wrong.
00:17:37.300 Yeah.
00:17:38.000 But the clarification, too, is that you in British Columbia,
00:17:42.340 you, I'm saying as a British Columbia member of parliament,
00:17:44.540 have this piece of provincial legislation called DRIPA,
00:17:47.700 the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People,
00:17:49.980 where New Brunswick doesn't, which complicates that.
00:17:53.580 But I think you're right.
00:17:54.460 I do agree, this sends a message, I think, will resonate.
00:17:59.100 I think it sends a message, clearly.
00:18:00.320 And they call the wiser on it, yeah.
00:18:01.060 Yeah, no, everybody in the Cowichan case in BC is appealing.
00:18:05.600 Yeah, yes.
00:18:06.440 Federal government, provincial government, Richmond, everybody is appealing.
00:18:09.320 Musqueam.
00:18:09.840 Musqueam, Tawasim, because they're unhappy, and the Cowichan are also unhappy,
00:18:13.740 because they had actually claimed Aboriginal title over 1,800 acres, about 7 square kilometers,
00:18:18.940 and the judge gave them only 800 acres. 0.68
00:18:22.600 So they're going, we needed more than that.
00:18:24.200 So everybody is equally unhappy.
00:18:27.080 It's going to end up at the Court of Appeal,
00:18:29.020 B.C. Court of Appeal.
00:18:30.680 And without the guidance from the Supreme Court of Canada,
00:18:34.760 I think the Court of Appeal will look very closely
00:18:37.740 at the reasoning in the New Brunswick Court of Appeal.
00:18:40.760 They're not bound by it,
00:18:42.500 but they will give it significant weight,
00:18:45.040 particularly since the Supreme Court of Canada
00:18:46.820 decided that they didn't have to hear the appeal.
00:18:49.300 And I think that would be the prudent thing to do.
00:18:51.040 I think that reasonable, that makes total sense.
00:18:53.420 It makes total sense, however.
00:18:55.800 However, there's always an option.
00:18:56.860 Yeah, yeah, exactly, right?
00:18:58.200 So lawyers like to make things complicated, right?
00:19:00.160 So, I mean, you raised the issue of DREPA, right?
00:19:03.820 This is British Columbia legislation
00:19:05.580 where BC incorporated the United Nations Declaration
00:19:10.160 on the Rights of Indigenous People.
00:19:11.700 It was never intended to be law, right?
00:19:13.160 It's just sort of a guiding principle.
00:19:15.020 British Columbia decided to make it part of their law.
00:19:17.340 This is backfiring on them badly, right?
00:19:19.140 That's maybe for another day.
00:19:20.780 But, you know, there are enough differences between British Columbia and New Brunswick to, you know, for me to say that an outcome from the B.C. Court of Appeal on the couch and appeal is uncertain.
00:19:33.220 We don't know where it's going.
00:19:34.440 This may end up at the Supreme Court of Canada yet.
00:19:36.640 Which is such a shame because B.C. has so much potential and they've done very, it's a beautiful province to live, but so much confusion and tension with homeowners and business owners around Richmond.
00:19:49.020 You see businesses getting a little, you know, hesitant about investing.
00:19:55.740 It's so unfortunate because there is so much more potential British Columbia has as a province to really kickstart the Canadian economy and get things rolling.
00:20:04.220 That's the last thing we need, to be honest, more uncertainty.
00:20:07.360 The real estate industry is really struggling these days, you know, because of other provincial and federal legislation and also municipal rules and development cost charges and everything.
00:20:18.040 It's become very complicated, and then you throw in this additional uncertainty about indefeasibility of title.
00:20:25.020 It's worrisome.
00:20:25.860 Yeah, they have an NDP government.
00:20:28.320 That pretty much says it all in British Columbia.
00:20:30.360 Takeout, we're over time a bit, but I hope that our listeners and viewers found this information helpful.
00:20:36.960 I know it's a lot of legal terms, but I think we did our best to try to summarize it as quick as possible
00:20:42.560 and give people an idea of what's going on and the latest development.
00:20:46.060 So the guests always get the last word here.
00:20:49.200 The floor is yours.
00:20:50.760 Good.
00:20:51.000 Well, thank you, Jamie.
00:20:51.880 Thank you for the invitation.
00:20:53.320 This is a very important topic.
00:20:55.120 I was just at a roundtable or a town hall meeting this morning
00:20:58.240 with people right from across the country.
00:21:01.660 And a lot of them go, what's all this going on in British Columbia?
00:21:04.860 And as one person said, yeah, this is a scary movie coming to a theater near you.
00:21:10.680 This is not just a BC issue.
00:21:12.280 If indefeasibility of title can be questioned in British Columbia, it can happen in other parts of the country as well.
00:21:19.340 Yeah, well, let's hope common sense prevails.
00:21:22.780 Like you said, the Supreme Court did make a pretty remarkable step, in my opinion, to kind of put some water on this fire and calm people down.
00:21:32.940 But reconciliation, right?
00:21:34.260 It's about bringing people together.
00:21:36.040 I think the government of British Columbia, the federal government here, has not been doing that.
00:21:40.540 And it's unfortunate.
00:21:41.540 It really is.
00:21:43.240 Takeo, thank you so much for coming on the show.
00:21:45.120 Takeo Van Popp to the Member of Parliament for Langley Township, Fraser Heights.
00:21:49.280 We once again thank him for his time.
00:21:51.220 Thank you for yours.
00:21:52.520 I hope you found this information very helpful.
00:21:54.980 But we also ask that you get it out to your friends and neighbours who may not understand exactly what is happening in British Columbia with the Cowichan decision.
00:22:02.760 So please like, comment, share and subscribe to this program.
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00:22:19.880 So until then, remember, low taxes, less government,
00:22:22.580 more freedom, that's the blueprint.
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