But don't take my word for it:
The Department of Immigration in internal staff emails cautioned against promoting “free” health care for foreigners, Access To Information records show. Managers did approve an October 13 tweet celebrating “public” health insurance: ‘Remove that word.’
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It failed to stop this theft of land developed by people who paid for it, not those who were nomadic:
The Shuswap (Secwépemc) Nation’s claim came to light this week courtesy of Elenore Sturko, the much-on-the-ball independent MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale.
The context was the recent B.C. Supreme Court decision granting Aboriginal title to the Cowichan Tribes over a chunk of south Richmond.
“The decision in the Cowichan Tribes case is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to claims of Aboriginal title in this province,” Sturko said by news release.
“The government has utterly failed to act in its basic duty to notify British Columbians of litigation that directly impacts their rights.”
The Cowichan claim was filed in 2014, the Shuswap in 2015. Both assert Aboriginal title over private land, though the latter covers much more territory.
Underscoring the scale, Sturko quoted from the provincial government reply to the Shuswap claim, which B.C. filed in 2016.
The nation seeks “a declaration of Aboriginal title to all or part of its traditional Territory,” which includes “the City of Kamloops, a number of other municipalities, Sun Peaks resort, roads, railways, privately owned tenures of many types, including fee simple grants, mineral tenures, and many other Crown granted interests,” reported Sturko.
“The private property rights of thousands of British Columbians are now in question, particularly in light of the court precedents set by the NDP in their handling of the Cowichan Tribes claim, and most certainly by the granting of title over existing private property in Haida Gwaii,” Sturko said.
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The Cowichan case wasn’t simply based on a First Nations claim to traditional territory. Lawyers for the Cowichan did indeed argue that the area of Richmond in question had been occupied by a Cowichan fishing village known as Tl’uqtinus, but their case hinged on the notion that the Crown had violated promises to keep the territory in Cowichan hands.
B.C.’s first governor, Sir James Douglas, is quoted in the decision as having told Cowichan representatives “Her Majesty the Queen had given me a special charge, to treat them with justice and humanity and to protect them against the violence of all foreign nations which might attempt to molest them, so long as they remained at peace with the settlements.”
This is why defenders of the Cowichan decision are framing it as a triumph for property rights, rather than the other way around. From the Cowichan’s perspective, they managed to regain control of Tl’uqtinus even after Crown authorities put a city on top of it.
Nevertheless, in resolving this dispute, the B.C. Supreme Court struck down a pretty foundational piece of provincial property law.
The decision spells this out rather explicitly, writing that “a precedent that will follow from this case is that provincial Crown grants of fee simple interest do not extinguish nor permanently displace Aboriginal title.”
The decision states that two critical sections of the B.C. Land Title Act no longer apply on lands over which Aboriginal title has been established. Those would be the sections that establish private land titles as being “indefeasible.”
In short, if you’re trying to figure out who owns a particular piece of land, its Aboriginal title takes precedent over whoever holds the deed. “Aboriginal title is a prior and senior right to land,” reads the decision.
As Thomas Isaac, a lawyer specializing in Aboriginal title, argued in an August op-ed for the Vancouver Sun, “the decision casts uncertainty over private property titles across the province.”
The Cowichan Tribes have been very clear they don’t want to evict any of the Richmond homeowners. “We are a respectful people. We intentionally did not bring this case against any individual private landowners, and we did not seek to invalidate any of their land titles,” said a statement by Quq’utsun Nation Chief Cindy Daniels.
(Sidebar: wait for it ...)
So it’s still entirely possible that that this case resolves itself with some form of financial compensation from the Crown. That’s typically how these things have played out. In 2006, for instance, the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations successfully settled a case arguing that the B.C. Parliament Buildings were built atop territory that had originally been set aside as a reserve. In response, the B.C. government didn’t award them the B.C. Parliament Buildings. Rather, they paid out $31.5 million and pledged to turn over some “Replacement Lands.”
(Sidebar: there it is.)
Nevertheless, by tearing up the “indefeasible” section of the Land Title Act, the Cowichan decision itself acknowledges that it’s not entirely clear what will happen to homeowners within the affected area. B.C. is simply told to “negotiate in good faith reconciliation” as to the lands’ fate.
(Sidebar: kicking the can down the road or leaving everything open to legal interpretation, which, as we've seen, goes in the way of anyone not in these tribes.)
All Richmond’s homeowners know is that the ownership status of their properties has been thrown into limbo, and it’s not entirely clear what will happen to homeowners within the affected area. B.C. is simply told to “negotiate in good faith reconciliation” as to the lands’ fate.
What’s more, barring a successful appeal, it’s mostly up to the Cowichan as to what happens as, unlike typical fee simple property rights, B.C. has no ability to extinguish Aboriginal title.
As B.C. lawyer Barry Kirkham wrote in a critique published by the Fraser Institute, the Cowichan now own the Richmond lands and thus have most of the leverage in any negotiation with the province.
Meet your new landlords.
If I had been the one to raise these questions, the cancel culture crowd would already be in full attack mode. But they can’t dismiss what’s happening now, because it’s not outsiders doing the talking. It’s Indigenous people themselves, standing up and demanding to know where the money has gone and why their communities are still struggling. Their voices are brave, their questions fair, and their message simple: the truth has to matter more than politics.
Something is happening that deserves our attention. For once, the loudest voices calling for accountability in Indigenous governance are not coming from outsiders or government auditors. They are coming from inside the communities themselves.
Jerleen Anderson Sullivan’s Facebook post about Norway House Cree Nation caught attention because it was fearless. She revealed that one councillor claimed $236,111 in expenses, another $141,062, and that together, the council’s expenses reached $871,731 for only seven members. Salaries were roughly $102,000 per councillor, the Chief just under $120,000. Expenses exceeded pay. Her question was simple but piercing: where did all that money go?
That question cuts to the heart of a much larger issue. The federal government now spends about $32 billion every year on Indigenous programs and services. That figure comes directly from Ottawa’s own budget and has tripled in the last decade. The goal of that spending is clear—to improve housing, education, health care, and opportunity. Yet across this country, too many homes remain unsafe, too many families lack clean water, and too many children grow up in poverty. The money keeps flowing, but the results stay the same.
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