October 20, 2025

(xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh)/Vancouver, B.C.) The First Nations Leadership Council (FNLC) is deeply disturbed and angered by B.C. Conservative Party leader John Rustad’s letter to Premier David Eby in which he calls for an immediate pause to all negotiations between the Province of British Columbia and First Nations in response to the BC Supreme Court’s recent declaration of Cowichan Aboriginal title, and frames First Nations’ inherent and constitutional rights to their lands as a threat to British Columbia’s legal, social, and economic stability. The FNLC is similarly disturbed by Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie’s alarmist commentary and related communication delivered to certain Richmond residents warning that their property’s title could be negatively affected by the Court’s decision.

Aboriginal title and fee simple private ownership can and do co-exist. Reconciliation through recognition of this legal and political fact is not a threat to the stability and prosperity of British Columbia; it is the foundation on which it is built. Good faith negotiation based on recognition of First Nations’ basic human rights is the only path forward. This is something Mr. Rustad, who was part of a unanimous legislature that passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act in 2019, knows full well despite his dangerous and cynical rhetoric to the contrary.