Federal managers continue to escape scrutiny despite billions spent on indigenous programs, Conservative MPs warned Tuesday, as cabinet refused to discuss any consequences for officials who fail to deliver results.
“Has anybody been fired?” asked MP Jamie Schmale (Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes, Ont.) during a Commons Indigenous and Northern affairs committee session.
A poor soul named Kristine in the office of B.C.’s Premier David Eby may have the worst job in Canada.
The provincial NDP government has been dropping flyers in the mailboxes of residents affected by a recent Supreme Court of B.C. decision that awarded the Cowichan Tribes title to more than seven square kilometres of land in the city of Richmond, including private residences.
One question that must be asked of NDP leadership aspirants: how do you respond to members and supporters who are bent on curbing freedom of speech in order to advance their social justice causes?
The Cowichan Tribes versus Canada case, recently decided by the B.C. Supreme Court, has been continuing for 11 years, including 513 days of trial hearings, and is already probably the longest trial in Canadian history and one of the most complicated. It has already been appealed and will presumably end in the Supreme Court of Canada.
Immense controversy has been provoked by the court’s recognition of the superiority in some cases of aboriginal title over the fee simple ownership of subsequent parties. The facts are specialized, and so fears that the native peoples in general could make a successful claim for ownership of the entire country, with the approximately 95 percent of non-aboriginal owners mere tenants of the innumerable tribes, bands, and clans among the First Nations, are exaggerated.
More than 500 days in harsh pre-trial custody was enough punishment for a Mohawk man caught driving around Peterborough with a crack pipe in his lap and a “killing machine” of a rifle in the back seat, along with a flame thrower in the trunk, according to a recent sentence of time served from Ontario’s Court of Justice.
Jesse Garlow, a convicted drug trafficker who was under a firearms prohibition, had been in custody since June 7, 2024 when he was sentenced. Police initially pulled him over because the car he was driving was weaving.
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.
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In the never-ending saga that is now land title in British Columbia, another bomb has been set off. It has come to light that the Secwépemc First Nation is seeking a declaration of Aboriginal Title to the entire City of Kamloops, a city in British Columbia’s interior of over 100,000 people, along with the surrounding area, including the ski resort of Sun Peaks, an area with an assessed value of at least $43 billion. While no decision has been made on this claim, the Cowichan ruling from August, which declared fee simple titles and interests in the City of Richmond “defective and invalid” in the title area, has sparked a flurry of interest and panic.
VICTORIA — A claim of Aboriginal title to all of Kamloops, the Sun Peaks resort and surrounding lands has languished in plain sight in the B.C. Supreme Court registry for 10 years.
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.
(Incognito)
When NDP MP Leah Gazan re-introduced her bill to make “residential school denialism” a criminal offence, she did so from a place of compassion. Her intent was to protect survivors from cruelty disguised as skepticism—to stop people from mocking the dead or trivializing one of Canada’s darkest chapters. But the debate her proposal has reignited goes beyond one bill. It cuts to the core of how a democracy handles truth, grief, and dissent.
She’s a Pretendian!
Here is a story about Leah Gazan that you certainly won’t read or hear about coming from CBC @brodiefenlon @carter_c @stirlingmg https://t.co/NgVbvFpJEy https://t.co/ISjdrKtj3p pic.twitter.com/aLr9oBfV7J
— cbcwatcher (@cbcwatcher) November 3, 2025
Many readers will be aware of a recent spate of activist rulings from federal judges in Canada, like the July ruling by a Toronto judge that there exists a heretofore unknown Charter right to bike lanes. Justice Paul Schabas created this right out of thin air because he wanted to prevent Ontario’s Conservative government from ordering the removal of bike lanes from major streets.
If these First Nation land title claims are approved in Kamloops & Richmond it will be the end of democracy in Canada because we will be ruled by people who are not elected by us.
I am sure that was the intended end result all along.
The elimination of basic individual rights &… https://t.co/DYtU1q3zBq
— Bruce McGonigal (@bruce_mcgonigal) November 6, 2025
h/t Mauser
The August ruling in the British Columbia case of Cowichan Tribes v. Canada marks a sea change in real property law and Indigenous rights law in Canada. In a 288,000-word decision, Justice Barbara Young ruled that the Cowichan Tribes hold Aboriginal title to as many as 1,846 acres of prime land in downtown Richmond, B.C., owned by the federal government, the City of Richmond, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority and numerous private landowners.
At the heart of the decision is the historical fact that more than 150 years ago the British government sold the land to white settlers without properly dealing with Indigenous rights.
Manitoba New Democrat MP Leah Gazan reintroduced a private member’s bill Friday that would criminalize residential school denialism, saying “real action” is needed to combat rising anti-Indigenous hate.
Bill C-254, if passed, would amend the Criminal Code to include the promotion of hatred against Indigenous Peoples by “condoning, denying, downplaying or justifying the Indian residential school system.”
Dig it!
The reaction to my recent column, It’s Time to Face Facts About Land Rights in Canada, did exactly what I hoped it would do. It started a conversation that this country desperately needs to have. More than 600,000 people read it on Facebook alone, and thousands joined the discussion. Some agreed, some disagreed, and some attacked me personally. That’s fine. What matters is that Canadians are finally talking about one of the most divisive and misunderstood issues in our country.
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