Texture Spring Economic Update Analysis

What is unfolding in B.C. is the most consequential collision between Indigenous rights and public opinion in a generation. Premier David Eby is staking his government’s survival on a confidence vote to suspend parts of a law he helped write as attorney general. Below, Texture breaks down his predicament, and why it may soon become a challenge for Prime Minister Mark Carney to solve.

Before we kick off, we want to preface this analysis by stating plainly that this is no longer a matter of legal merits, so we are deliberately leaving out those arguments. All parties involved have spectacularly failed to communicate effectively. An army of lawyers from all sides waved their law degrees on TV and said, fret not, simple people, this is a complicated matter you do not understand, but we can assure you that everyone is overreacting. Now a provincial government is so gobsmacked it is lurching towards its own potential demise like a reanimated Frankenstein.

The courts of law may have ruled, but the court of public opinion is now in session.

The Brief

Politically, the Cowichan decision in August 2025 was the first shoe to drop. The B.C. Supreme Court declared Aboriginal title over approximately 750 acres in Richmond, found that Crown and municipal fee simple titles on the land were “defective and invalid,” and ruled that the granting of private titles unjustifiably infringed on Cowichan Aboriginal title. The Cowichan Tribes did not seek to invalidate private landowners’ titles, but the court’s findings caused widespread panic among the good people of B.C. whose life savings are tied up in their homes.

These people do not care about the distinction between a declaration of Aboriginal title and an order of restitution. They care that their property might be worthless.

By December 2025, the alarm had grown serious enough that the provincial government put up $150 million in loan guarantees for property owners in the title area to ensure banks would keep mortgaging them. That is not something governments typically do. How confident would you feel buying a property in a market where the government had to backstop mortgages?

The second shoe dropped in December, when the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled in the Gitxaala case that the B.C. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) gives the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) immediate legal force in the province, meaning courts can now strike down any B.C. law that doesn’t comply with it. On its face, Gitxaala is about the duty to consult and the mineral claims regime, not about residential property. But it compounds the Cowichan panic because if DRIPA can strike down mineral tenure, why not B.C. property and land title laws?

Then in February 2026 there was, incredibly, a third shoe – the federal government signed a rights recognition agreement with the Musqueam Indian Band, formally acknowledging Aboriginal rights and title across Musqueam’s traditional territory, which covers much of Greater Vancouver. Both Ottawa and Musqueam insist the agreement does not affect private property. But according to an Angus Reid Institute survey released last week, 58 per cent of British Columbians say they have little or no trust in those assurances.

That polling tells the rest of the story. 53 per cent of British Columbians now say DRIPA goes too far in limiting provincial authority, up from 44 per cent in August 2025. Half say the province gives “too much” attention to Indigenous issues, a 14-point increase over the same period. Three-in-five say B.C. is on the wrong track, a 17-point jump from the previous year. By a more than three-to-one margin, those who believe DRIPA has gone too far say they would vote B.C. Conservative.

B.C. voters are not parsing Gitxaala from Cowichan from Musqueam. They are experiencing a single, compounding crisis of confidence in the security of their property that they attribute to Indigenous court rulings, and they are looking for someone to fix it.

What Eby Is Doing and Why

On April 2, Premier Eby announced his proposed solution: suspend the sections of DRIPA and the Interpretation Act that require B.C.’s laws to be interpreted as consistent with UNDRIP and that oblige the government to bring all legislation into alignment, for up to three years. This would buy time for the Supreme Court of Canada to rule on the province’s appeal of Gitxaala. The sections of DRIPA that allow the province and First Nations to negotiate resource agreements would remain in place.

Eby’s lawyers say the Gitxaala ruling exposes the province to potentially unlimited legal liability as every provincial statute could be challenged for UNDRIP consistency. The Law Society of B.C. and the Canadian Bar Association have cautioned that the government’s approach may erode judicial independence. But Eby is betting that his core argument – that the courts, not elected governments, are now driving reconciliation unchecked – will resonate with voters. And that is because voters are not thinking about judicial independence. They are thinking about their homes.

Eby has declared the suspension a confidence vote while the NDP holds a single-seat majority. Every NDP MLA – including three who are Indigenous – must vote yes, or the government falls.

The B.C. Greens have already signalled they will vote non-confidence if First Nations oppose the suspension, which they do. A leaked transcript of Eby’s meeting with Indigenous leaders, obtained by the Canadian Press, shows speaker after speaker accusing the premier of betrayal.

Meanwhile, the B.C. Conservative leadership race concludes May 30, and every candidate is running on repealing DRIPA entirely. If the confidence vote fails before then, interim leader Trevor Halford leads the party into an election on a platform of full repeal. If it fails after, the new leader takes the helm. Either way, the Conservatives will campaign on the singular promise of certainty through repeal.

The B.C. Conservatives hold 38 seats. If they supported the suspension, a few NDP abstentions wouldn’t matter. But the Conservatives want full repeal, not a three-year pause. Halford has said Eby’s announcement made the situation “more uncertain than it has ever been before.”

There is a middle path the Conservatives could take: vote to pass the suspension through second reading, then use committee stage to push for stronger amendments, buying themselves time to get through their May 30 leadership vote and go to the electorate in early summer with a permanent leader and a clear platform.

The Carney Government’s Dilemma

Prime Minister Mark Carney has been conspicuously quiet on this, and for good reason. His sovereignty-first economic agenda intersects directly with Indigenous title and UNDRIP obligations. And national polling confirms the anxiety is not confined to B.C. According to Angus Reid Institute polling released in August 2025, 43 per cent of Canadians said UNDRIP should be scaled back in favour of moving major development projects forward, a figure that rises to a majority in B.C., Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario. It is important to state that the same poll shows the vast majority of Canadians still feel that treaties have not been appropriately respected and honoured by Canada. They clearly want Indigenous rights respected, but there is a sense that things have gone too far, and now the public opinion pendulum swings back.

It is important to reiterate here that the exact same language that is at issue in BC’s DRIPA exists in the federal government’s UNDRIP legislation. In a letter Eby sent to First Nation leaders on April 8, obtained by the Canadian Press, the Premier stated that the ruling means every provincial law can be challenged for being inconsistent with the UN declaration. And that creates an “untenable degree of legal uncertainty.” The same must also be true for the federal legislation. And so, we must expect the federal government realizes it is in the same bind as Eby.

On April 9, Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre held a press conference in Richmond, B.C. and called on Carney to:

• Direct federal lawyers to argue for property rights protections.

• Include explicit property protection in all future agreements with Indigenous governments.

• Publish a plan within 30 days to protect property rights for Canadians affected by the Cowichan decision and Musqueam agreement.

• Convene a Parliamentary committee to study all legal, constitutional and political steps to protect private property rights in Canada.

What else can Carney do?

Of course, doing nothing and waiting for appeals is an option for Carney. It’s the usual course of action. But it is rare for a politician to be comfortable with prolonged uncertainty, worsening public opinion, and the risk that the next court might make things more challenging.

Carney could also adopt Eby’s approach, if it works. That would mean suspending the federal UNDRIP Act while awaiting an appeal decision. But if Carney decides he cannot wait it out, there are other tools in the toolbox. None are easy.

Carney could repeal the federal UNDRIP legislation. After all, he has repealed practically everything else Trudeau did, and Parliament can do whatever it wants. But doing so could trigger a duty-to-consult challenge, with the government’s own legislation used against it. And what an exercise in futility. Imagine consulting Indigenous peoples on a law designed to protect their rights, about your plan to take it away.

He could also amend or repeal and replace. He could argue that the current legislation should have included clear boundaries and explicit direction, and add those in. But he would still have to consult on the amendments or replacement legislation and would have the same challenge.

Carney could also ask the Supreme Court for a reference. Under Section 53 of the Supreme Court Act, the Governor in Council can refer important questions of law to the Court for an advisory opinion. Carney could ask the Court directly: does the federal UNDRIP Act create justiciable obligations that allow courts to strike down federal laws for inconsistency with UNDRIP? And critically: what is the relationship between Aboriginal title and private property rights?

A reference would be faster than waiting for appeals to work through the system and would give every province, territory, Indigenous government, and industry group the chance to weigh in as intervenors. The Court’s opinion in a reference is technically advisory, but no government has ever ignored one. The risk is obvious: if the Court’s answer is one the government doesn’t like, they must either accept and implement it or do something that hasn’t been attempted in a generation: amend the constitution.

Right now, there is no explicit protection for private property in the Canadian Constitution. Since land title is provincial jurisdiction, passing federal legislation would not help. And in any case, so long as questions remain about UNDRIP, any property rights legislation passed would be subject to it. But opening the Constitution is the third rail of Canadian politics. The amending formula requires the consent of Parliament and seven provinces representing at least 50 per cent of the population. Six provinces opposed the federal UNDRIP Act in 2021. B.C., under either Eby or a Conservative successor, would almost certainly be onside, getting you to seven. We could go into more detail here about the process for a constitutional amendment, but we will save that for if/when it is needed.

The Bottom Line

Everyone involved in this story has legitimate grievances. The current approach, where courts fill the vacuum and ordinary people get caught in the crossfire, is failing everyone. What is happening in B.C. right now is a preview of what is to come. At its outer edge, it could reopen constitutional questions governments have avoided. This is the kind of issue that can define governments and decide elections.

Texture is developing scenario plans for each of the above possibilities unique to our clients and their needs, exposure and strategic entanglement with this evolving legislative, financial, and judicial situation.