Unplug the Anti-Indigenous Fear Machine in Victoria

Opinion

Indigenous

BC Politics

Question period is the wrong place to discuss rights and title. The NDP can choose a better way.

Adam Olsen 9 Jun 2026 The Tyee

Adam Olsen, a former BC Green Party MLA for Saanich North and the Islands and a member of Tsartlip First Nation, is a regular contributor to The Tyee.

British Columbia is one of the most remarkably diverse places in North America. The province celebrates its ecologic biodiversity as “ Super, Natural ,” and Destination BC posters use the mountains, oceans and forests to draw visitors from around the world.

But the provincial territory is much more than its ecological splendour. What is often undervalued in the story we tell of British Columbia is how it is home to more than 35 distinct Indigenous languages, and dozens of legal orders and governance traditions. All told, British Columbia is an unparalleled mosaic of cultural and linguistic diversity.

Recently, the tenor of conversations in media, on Facebook and among politicians has encouraged British Columbians to see this diversity as a threat. But it is actually our collective inherited wealth.

Viewing Crown-Indigenous relations from an abundance mindset addressing the outstanding land question offers us a way to see the more spectacular story of what British Columbia could fully become.

Manufactured crisis and escalating rhetoric

The British Columbia legislative assembly has now adjourned for the summer. Unfortunately, the centre for politics in our province has turned into an engine of anti-Indigenous racism. Some members have chosen to use the chamber, and the iconic building, as a content farm for the social media outrage machine.

I, and others, have written extensively on how Crown-Indigenous relations have deteriorated over the past several months. This is the result of a variety of reasons including a lack of broad public awareness of British Columbia’s history , the evolving Indigenous law through key B.C. Supreme Court and Court of Appeal decisions , and a B.C. Conservative Opposition party that decided that rather than focus on the overlapping social, environmental and economic crises facing our province, they would use their time to persistently attack Indigenous rights and title.

But the problem is that recent court decisions did not create a crisis. Instead, they exposed the reality of the “Indian land question” that was already lurking under the splendid facade that British Columbia has constructed and maintained every day since the province joined Confederation.

By treating the current conditions as a crisis , the provincial government escalated and reinforced the fearmongering rhetoric of the opposition parties.

Depoliticizing Indigenous rights and title

Question period is not the right venue for elected leaders to investigate, prosecute and defend Indigenous rights and title in British Columbia. For the past two years the B.C. Conservative and OneBC opposition parties have used their precious 30 minutes at the start of every day of the legislative session to hammer reconciliation and relentlessly attack the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA. But question period creates political heat — not public policy resolution.

In my experience, select standing committees are a much more appropriate space to undertake work that requires a more precise and surgical response in good public policy-making. No matter who sits in the premier’s chair, they will confront the reality of Crown-Indigenous relations. No single party should feel they carry the full weight of the issue, nor should they take sole credit for reconciliatory efforts.

The cross-party work of parliamentary committees removes the responsibility from any one political party. They report to the whole legislative assembly through clear terms of reference, and it is a space where they can inform their work by inviting the testimony of historians, constitutional experts, academics, First Nations leaders and community members. Their reports are consensus-based, reflecting only what all members can find agreement on. There is no other space in the legislature that reflects this approach.

The Aboriginal affairs committee is one of 11 permanent committees of the British Columbia legislative assembly. But the government never leverages this tool for its full benefit. I was an appointed committee member for the seven years I was an MLA. But the committee never met — not even while B.C. was developing DRIPA.

Indigenous rights, title and reconciliation are not the governing party’s problem to solve alone. In fact, it substantially weakens the work when the only place for opposition members to raise important questions is question period.

It is long past time the government share the responsibility across the whole legislative assembly by removing the issue from the bombast of question period and by placing it in the far more constructive and calm venue of a parliamentary committee.

Indigenous right…