PRIVATE property now INDIGENOUS land？ B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad responds
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Summary
A bombshell judgment was released by B.C. s Supreme Court on Friday, declaring Aboriginal title over land in Richmond, including private property. If it stands, it has massive implications for private property across the province.
Transcript
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Hi, I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is the Candace Malcolm Show.
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We are joined by John Rodsett, leader of the B.C. Conservatives, in just a minute.
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And also, this episode is sponsored by Unsmoke, but more on them a little later.
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I want to start by talking about an issue in the news, and I'm going to bring this up with John in a moment.
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And that is a bombshell judgment that was released by B.C.'s Supreme Court.
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So you might have seen Carolyn Elliott on X posting on Friday,
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bombshell judgment released by B.C.'s Supreme Court declaring aboriginal title over land in Richmond,
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If it stands, it has massive implications for private property across B.C.
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I'm going to read a little bit from a Globe and Mail report.
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The headline says, major land claims ruling, says B.C. Indigenous groups,
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has claimed to a portion of the city's port land.
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So Vancouver First Nations has won a major court victory,
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with the judge declaring it has title to a portion of land in the Vancouver area
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that includes currently active industrial operations on the Fraser River.
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Justice Barbara Young of the B.C. Supreme Court declared that the Cowichan tribes
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have established aboriginal title to roughly 800 acres in the city of Richmond,
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Her 863-page ruling from a trial that stretched 513 days over five years,
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from 2021 to 2023, was issued Thursday and published online Friday.
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The court ruling in what was billed as the longest trial in Canada's history,
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no kidding, represents a milestone in the country's continual societal
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and legal reckoning of Indigenous reconciliation.
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The decision follows a line of similarly important rulings,
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and there will almost certainly be legal arguments and appellate cases.
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because it is truly disturbing and unsettling, folks.
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You see the land-back activists, people demanding land-back,
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You know, those land acknowledgements that we're forced to hear
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any time there's a public press conference now from politicians,
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all saying that Canada is basically an illegitimate country
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and that the land actually belongs to the First Nations.
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saying that, yes, First Nations have title to the land
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and they can take it back if they prove their case really interesting.
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Not only that, I'm going to read a little bit more from this Globe and Mail report.
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There are three different First Nations groups or bands
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that all have claims over the same part of land in Richmond,
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The Cowichan tribes case, like many before it, is particularly complicated.
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It says that the case pitted regional indigenous groups against each other.
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but in centuries past had an annual summer village on the Fraser River,
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or so they claim, and that is where they fish for salmon.
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The Musqueam and Tawassan tribes have long lived around Fraser River
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The Musqueam upset over the court ruling on Friday morning.
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They called it devastating and said it impacts their own title and fishing rights.
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The land in question is within Musqueam's traditional
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and unceded territory, writes the Globe and Mail.
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Chief Wayne Sparrow said in a statement that Musqueam are extremely disappointed
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that the Cowichan would go against our shared Salish Coast protocols.
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It says the Cowichan claim involved 1,800 acres,
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and the court declared title on roughly 40% of that.
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But lawyers involved in the case say that if the ruling stands,
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that land would not be affected until the properties are sold.
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So you can keep your land for now, but you lose all value and all equity
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because when you sell it, it's not going to be yours.
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Justice Young declared that the land titles held by Canada and Richmond
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well, a judge may declare that that is defective and invalid,
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and therefore you don't actually have title to your land.
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Again, from the Globe and Mail piece, it says if the Cowichan's win
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is upheld in future appeals, they could eventually take control
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of the land in question and use it as they see fit.
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Justice Young, a decade-long veteran of the court,
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suspended the declaration on land titles for 18 months
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so the Cowichan federal government and city of Richmond
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will have the opportunity to make necessary arrangements.
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She writes, and then she continued to say that a period to allow
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for an orderly transition of lands is in keeping with the principle of reconciliation.
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The principle of reconciliation means an orderly transition of the lands.
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So for all those people calling for reconciliation,
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all of the focus on that, at least for the land-backed people
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and what I consider extreme radicals in this position,
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reconciliation means an orderly transition of the lands.
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This is unbelievable, the direction that we're heading.
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This is written by University of Saskatchewan's law professor, Dwight Newman.
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He writes, the less certain future of private lands in British Columbia
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and basically just says that the judgment has a much broader implication
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that any privately owned lands in B.C. may be subject to being overridden by aboriginal title.
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Now I'm going to bring John Rudstad on in just a second
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he wants an urgent appeal of the aboriginal title ruling which threatens public policy.
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But first, I want to thank our sponsor of today's show, which is Unsmoke.
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Okay, I'm very pleased now to be joined by John Rudstad.
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Rudstad served as leader of the official opposition since 2024
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when the B.C. Conservatives narrowly lost that election,
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It was an incredibly close election under Rudstad's leadership of the Conservative Party.
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Well, first of all, I want you to comment on this bombshell landmark ruling
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and what it means for the people of British Columbia
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and more specifically, property owners in British Columbia.
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When you look at a court case that finds title underneath private land,
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the reality for all of us as Canadians, as British Columbians,
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Indigenous rights, Indigenous title cannot coexist with private property rights.
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you have the right to put up a fence and say no trespassing, right?
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You can use it for the things that you want to do.
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But when it comes to Indigenous rights and Indigenous title,
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Indigenous population have the right to use property,
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to use land, to carry on with traditional ways.
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And there's nothing you can do to stop it because that's right.
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So the two are in direct conflict and really cannot coexist
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And I talked to some of the homeowners that are impacted by this particular case
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They ask, like this one lady I talked to, single mom,
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this is her life savings she put into buying this piece.
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And she's wondering now, have I lost my life savings?
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They're worried about how this impacts the value of their property.
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So there's a huge number of questions that are outstanding on this issue.
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It's the precedent that is being set here for the whole province,
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But it follows on the heels of some legislation that the NDP put forward
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in British Columbia on the Haida, on the Haida Islands,
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where they actually define title on the entire islands,
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including underneath private property and infrastructure.
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And now the court case here has now confirmed that this could exist anywhere in the province.
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And in British Columbia, 120% of British Columbia is claimed by First Nations.
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So you better believe all private land across this province could now potentially be subject
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to having an Indigenous title underneath their private property.
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Well, from the Globe and Mail report that I read from,
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you could tell that the individual bands don't even agree with each other, right?
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This was given to the Cowichan Band, which is a Vancouver Island band.
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And it's got competing claims from the Musqueam and the Tawassan.
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And so, I mean, it's hard to kind of comprehend.
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I want to bring it back to the private property comment that you made,
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because in this Globe and Mail article, it says that there are some privately held properties,
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but lawyers involved in the case said that if the ruling stands, that land would not be affected
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So meaning that the value that you would have the equity in your home or in your land
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that you were planning to use as your retirement nest egg or pass on to your children when you pass away,
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Because when you try to sell it, no one's going to want to buy land that is held,
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that a court has ruled is going to be held by the First Nations.
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I mean, how would you assure any private property owners or anyone considering buying a home in British Columbia
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Private property and infrastructure should never, ever be on the table for a title declaration,
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whether that's by court or whether that's by negotiation.
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But really, when you wind this case back, this started in 2019.
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At that particular point, they should have recognized the risk that this would have had for private property owners
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and sat down and negotiated a settlement and dealt with this as opposed to allowing this to get to this stage.
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And really, this government has completely thrown private property rights, private property ownership, you know, under the bus.
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Think about the chill that this will put on British Columbia from an investment perspective.
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If you want to build housing or if you want to put in a warehouse and put in some manufacturing
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or if you want to build a mine or any type of activity that's now in the land base,
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you no longer have any certainty that the private property you're trying to build on could remain private property.
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And so the other interesting piece of this is, of course, in the HIDA legislation,
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what it says is that with Indigenous title, Indigenous law can apply.
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How does Indigenous law potentially impact or even override your private property rights?
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Could they say what you can and can't do with the property?
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And, of course, you have no ability to vote for that government because that's an Indigenous government.
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And so if it was taxation, for example, that would be, you know, taxation without representation.
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And this, like I say, this case should never, ever have gotten to court.
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It should have been resolved outside in terms of negotiation.
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But now that it's there, the government of the day, the NDP government,
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needs to clearly define what they are going to be fighting for in terms of defending private property rights.
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I think a lot of people will say that this is all sort of downstream from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous People, known as UNDRIP.
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There was another case in British Columbia that came out earlier this month in August, August 9th.
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The Okanagan Falls may need to change its name in order to become BC's newest municipality.
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So basically, according to UNDRIP, one of the things that it requires is that First Nations have the right to designate and name their own communities, places and people.
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And so because of this, Okanagan Falls may have to rename.
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I mean, we've seen a lot of this, John, in British Columbia where places have had to rename.
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Back when I grew up, we used to call it the Queen Charlotte Islands.
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But we see these kinds of stories all the time, including recently Trutch Street in Vancouver was given a new name that I wouldn't even try to pronounce because I think it's unpronounceable.
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What do you make of these changes and what do you make of UNDRIP more broadly?
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Well, as the Conservative Party of British Columbia, we are committed to repealing the DRIPA legislation, the Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People Act.
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Any legislation that gives rights to one group of people over another will never end well because ultimately it creates friction.
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It is the opposite of reconciliation, and reconciliation should be the goal of what we're trying to do.
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So DRIPA is something that we would repeal and remove in British Columbia to get away from this case, for example.
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The other piece, though, is there are values in UNDRIP that are worth using when we work with First Nations as a guiding principle, but that's what it should be.
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It shouldn't be legislation and using it as this hammer.
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So I think, you know, I don't have a problem with renaming, you know, for example, the Seedish Sea or Haida Gwaii, these types of things.
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But when it comes to, you know, many other things, look, we need to make, we need to understand that in British Columbia, Indigenous people are somewhere between four and five percent of the population.
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And we need to be able to respect rights, but we also need to be able to respect the rights of all British Columbians.
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So we need to make sure that what we are doing is reflecting all of us in terms of our true history and, quite frankly, what our future needs to be.
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Look, I want to push back just a little bit about the renaming.
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Like, I understand that, obviously, British Columbia was inhabited before the Europeans came and that some of the names come from Indigenous words.
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I mean, even Okanagan, it's not an English word, right?
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It's clearly derived from a different language.
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But what I see often now, John, it almost feels like it's deliberately confusing to people that you cannot pronounce the words.
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It's not written in an alphabet that's recognizable.
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And so with the case of Trutch Street getting renamed and then the signs that were unveiled, you can imagine in an emergency situation someone's trying to call for help and they can't pronounce the words.
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And it seems to me that that is done intentionally to confuse or to alienate people.
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And I just don't understand why they have to introduce a new alphabet.
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English and French are the official languages of Canada.
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So why would you rename streets and cities and places into words with an alphabet that we don't recognize?
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Yeah, you know, the interesting thing is when it comes to Indigenous languages in British Columbia, we've got, I think, it's 64 different dialects, 32 different languages with Indigenous people.
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And so when they're trying to translate how to pronounce words that cannot be easily spelt in the English language or the English dialect, they're trying to figure out how do you actually spell that.
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So they've tried to come up with an alphabet that is English, is what we use, but it also is supplemented to reflect the sounds that they use as part of their naming.
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There needs to be clear cases where something like that can work and something that makes sense and some cases where it doesn't.
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A street name, you know, for example, if the street name is on a reserve, in that type of thing, in many places around the province, it has a First Nations name.
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If you're talking about, you know, Main Street down the middle of a city, really is that kind of what you would need to be doing with the names?
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But, you know, in terms of a street that might be directly attached with First Nations territory within a First Nations reserve, I don't have a problem with that kind of a sort of name changing.
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Yeah, there's no question there's going to be issues in terms of it.
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But that's part of what we need to be thinking about also in terms of reconciliation.
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And I'll just give you an example from my home community, Prince George.
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And they were forced out of that community and relocated to a community further upriver.
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And so when it came to looking at reconciliation, they made a decision, the city made a decision to rename that park Claytonay Park.
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And there was a whole bunch of people that were opposed to it and concerned about it.
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And then they went, oh, okay, wait a second here.
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And so, you know, reconciliation is not an easy path to be walked.
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But once again, when you look at it, you've got to think, how does this impact people on a day-to-day life?
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In particular, this is why the private property infrastructure, why those sort of issues are such a big issue.
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Because now you're talking about seriously impacting people's day-to-day lives and building their future.
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Yeah, well, you certainly raise a good point about reconciliation and the idea is, you know, creating a future where we can live and coexist in peace.
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But sometimes you see things in the news and online, John, make you concerned about whether we're actually heading in that direction.
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And this was something that I posted on social media.
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The Adams Lake Indian Band put up a sign recently that said, no trespassing, no illegal activities, and no settlers.
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And saying that certain people, based on their skin color or their heritage, are not allowed in other parts of the province or of their community.
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Look, I spent some time in high school in Campbell River.
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And sometimes we'd go on to the Native Reserves to visit friends or meet up with people or, you know, just to drop by and say hi to someone.
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And the fact that they would erect a sign like this in Adams Lake saying, no settlers, I don't know how strictly that's enforced.
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But it's a sign that, when I saw it, made me feel really uncomfortable.
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It's the opposite of what reconciliation should be.
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You know, we need to recognize that this is Canada.
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And even though, you know, Indigenous people might have been here for 10,000 years, they still have came here from somewhere else.
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Just like everybody in this country, they came here from somewhere else.
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And we need to recognize what we've built as a country.
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And I think the other thing is we need to understand Canada's history.
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I mean, if Canada wasn't here as a country, what would have happened?
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The Americans probably would have come up here and done the same thing that they did in their country,
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which is declare them a sovereign nation, bring in the army, attack them, wipe them out, and conquer the area.
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And so Canada, in a way, is the whole reason why many First Nations rights have even been protected and exist today.
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And so this is why we need to think about this as Canada and British Columbia.
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And we need to understand that this is part of reconciliation, how we bring this together and have that understanding.
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Because there's resentment, there's issues on both sides of the border, or both sides of the issue.
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I looked at, for example, in the Okanagan, there's a beach in the Okanagan that is beside a First Nations reserve.
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And there's a sign on the beach saying, Indians only.
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And I looked at that, and that's hugely offensive to me, that it's a public beach, that the foreshore is crown land.
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And to put up a sign like that, first of all, I mean, it's racist.
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But second of all, it has that potential, that connotation about, you know, one group versus another.
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I thought the whole idea is that we're Canadians, and we're trying to find a way to reconcile and to become one.
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But this is also a huge problem with our Constitution.
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Like, our Constitution has created many of these problems and issues we have today.
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When the Constitution came in 1982, and we had Section 35, which is what has enshrined indigenous rights, which includes title,
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it was defined at the time as being this empty vessel of law that the courts would fill.
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Well, I think what we're seeing now, particularly with this case now with the Cowichan,
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and what we've seen through this is maybe that has gone a little too far.
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Maybe we need to be rethinking how to address this to be able to make sure that we recognize and respect
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and reconcile the indigenous people, the people that were here before us,
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but also the rights of all Canadians and how those things come together.
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Well, I think that would be a much better path forward to focus on the positive things,
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the friendships, the treaties, the partnerships that were formed between the early Canadians
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and the First Nations instead of dwelling so much on the things that we've focused on.
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Okay, John, I want to move on a little bit to talk about your opponent, David Eby,
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and his record in government, so B.C.'s debt has been skyrocketing in the first two years.
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This is in the Vancouver Sun, basically saying that they have increased provincial debt by almost 50%
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Eby inherited provincial debt of $89 billion a year,
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and at the end of its first year, it had soared to $133, up $44 billion.
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Well, this has been absolute insane spending by this government,
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especially when it comes to the operating from the actual budget as opposed to the capital side.
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And so they've gone from what was about a $5 billion or $6 billion surplus
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to what a lot of people are estimating saying it would be an $18 billion deficit in just over two years.
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How do you destroy the finances of this province so quickly and have nothing to show for it?
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Nobody can point to anything in this province that is better under the NDP.
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Anything, whether it's crime, whether it's drugs, whether it's housing,
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whether it's affordability, whether it's our economy, nothing is improving.
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And so it really makes you wonder how and where they're spending this money.
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And you look at our capital, yes, we need to invest in roads,
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and we have to invest in hospitals and schools.
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The budget, the amount of capital that is allocated this year for capital projects
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is the equivalent of all the cost overruns on the projects that they're running.
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So this has been just incompetence in terms of how they're actually getting projects done
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They've been in power for eight years now, not going on the ninth year.
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There isn't a single project that's actually completed in terms of highways or bridges or anything like that.
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And you look at it and think, how could this be that nothing could have gotten done over that period of time?
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Well, you mentioned crime, and we have some statistics here.
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Violent offenders in BC, why can't it catch and release bails, are failing.
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So Vancouver recorded 6,256 violent crimes in 2023, including 4,900 assaults,
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The data shows that basically these policies where they can't keep bad guys behind bars
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is obviously failing all Canadians, and particularly in British Columbia.
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So I'm wondering if you can comment on, again, the crime rules and what you would do differently.
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So in this province, for whatever reason, the judges and our Crown prosecution have decided
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We've got, for example, this Youth Correction Centre that I've heard from.
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They have typically between four and six people in there with that capacity.
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So you kind of look at it and you think, well, we're not committing less crime.
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How is it that we're not utilizing these facilities for what they need to be used for?
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We need some significant change in British Columbia, and I think quite frankly,
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likely in Canada, but certainly in British Columbia, when it comes to dealing with crime.
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And the approach that we're going to take on it is, first of all,
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we're going to push for guaranteed minimum sentencing.
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And this is especially targeted at these prolific offenders.
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The police tell me that 70% of the crime is being committed by 30% of the criminals.
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And so when you look at that, there are so many of these people that should be behind bars.
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And we just, we seem to be treating them all like they're the same.
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Like they might be 30, 50, 100 different infractions, interactions with the police,
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And so what we'll do, we'll push for guaranteed minimum sentencing.
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But what we can do in provincially is we can actually use the Mental Health Act if we had to.
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And so we want to change the court system so that there's a streamlined process for these
00:25:42.800
They get into the courts immediately instead of having to wait, you know, a year or two years
00:25:46.960
or sometimes getting thrown out because they don't have the ability to get to court.
00:25:51.260
But where we have these prolific offenders, particularly these prolific violent offenders,
00:25:55.220
if the courts will not put them behind bars where they need to be, then we're going to
00:25:59.620
have to look at using things like the Mental Health Act because that's the only tool we
00:26:04.360
So if somebody is at risk of harming themselves or others, they can be held and treated and
00:26:16.500
Of course, there'll be a Section 7 challenge from the Charter because you're taking away
00:26:21.320
And we may have to use the Notwithstanding Clause if need be because we need to get these
00:26:25.600
people off our streets enough, enough of protecting the criminals' rights.
00:26:31.440
We need to start protecting the citizens' rights so that they can be safe once again in our streets.
00:26:37.300
And honestly, I think it's a compassionate thing to do because so many of the people that
00:26:40.320
you see on the streets suffering out in the open using drugs, they also have mental health
00:26:46.240
And that's something that's sort of often ignored by the progressive side of things.
00:26:51.160
John, I know you are undergoing a leadership review for your party, which wraps up in September.
00:26:55.500
And then you have an AGM that is coming up in the fall.
00:26:59.580
So I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about that process.
00:27:02.500
Well, actually, the AGM is not out for a little while here yet.
00:27:06.380
But yes, the leadership process is going on throughout the province.
00:27:09.300
And this is standard for any political party in terms of a leadership review that needs
00:27:15.220
Our old constitution said that every year there had to be a leadership review, regardless
00:27:19.520
of whatever the circumstance was, and it was to be done online where people got a chance
00:27:25.980
We looked at it and went, that's not really a very, first of all, it's not stability, but
00:27:33.640
And so we decided we would give people an in-person opportunity to vote as to whether
00:27:39.420
or not they like the leadership of the party and they like the pledge that I've put forward
00:27:44.700
in terms of our priorities as a party and as a leader.
00:27:51.820
But I've been touring throughout the province and been meeting with members right across
00:27:55.660
British Columbia and people are quite happy with what we're doing.
00:28:01.720
Most people are likely, certainly, you know, wish we had won the last election.
00:28:06.640
It was 257 votes away from us being government as opposed to them being government.
00:28:15.780
We'll know by the end of September what the will of the members of the party is.
00:28:21.600
Well, we look forward to having you back and hopefully you can tell us more about the update
00:28:29.280
I mean, it's wild how close that election was in B.C.
00:28:32.260
Reminds you folks how important it is to get out there and vote.
00:28:35.840
That's John Rudd said, leader of the B.C. Conservative Party.
00:28:39.800
All right, folks, thanks so much for tuning in.