Indigenous people and reconciliation have lawyer Niki Sharma on their side

"In fact, her NDP government, led by Premier David Eby, has been doing everything in its power to have Aboriginal title triumph across B.C."

Commentary: Bruce Pardy THE NATIONAL POST, October 28, 2025. Eby bringing B.C. to its knees with Aboriginal land deals

In September, 2025, a lawyer for British Columbia joined the federal government in supporting a Haida court application for a declaration of Aboriginal title over Haida Gwaii. If successful, this would mean the province's legislation could not be repealed by a future government. The Court claim was successful, the Court agreed to the Aboriginal title under the Canadian constitution.

Sharma insists that "we're not secretive" about what happened in the Aboriginal title Court proceeding nor the effects on property titles. Somebody knew, and it wasn't the general public, nor the the BC NDP's own minister of Indigenous Relations Spencer Chandra Herbert.

Sharma as a lawyer would know full well that the Aboriginal title court proceeding cannot be reversed. The provincial government did not make that court proceeding public. The Haida nation did.

New or other Aboriginal title claims can now refer to these proceedings and merit by them. The rest of the non-native population in British Columbia have a piece of paper of title to property that may, as a spokesperson for Visit Vancouver said, "be practically worthless."

In August 2025, the BC Supreme Court ruled in another proceeding that the Cowichan Tribes (Quw'utsun Nation) hold Aboriginal title to approximately 750-800 acres (around 3 square kilometers) of land in South Richmond. Other property owner titles elsewhere in the province may also be affected.

"It is finally dawning on British Columbians that obsequious devotion to reconciliation is putting their land at risk. Sharma claimed that B.C. was pursuing multiple grounds of appeal, but that makes her a hypocrite. Her government did not robustly defend in court against the Cowichan claim. And in a dozen other ways, the Eby government has sought to put title and control of B.C. into Aboriginal hands.

Commentary: Bruce Pardy. THE NATIONAL POST. ibid.,

The BC NDP realized that the public now knew of the magnitude of the New Democrats major accomplishments legislatively for indigenous peoples. What is worse, it can't be undone and trying to will take many years potentially reaching the Supreme Court Of Canada and a whopping sum of tax payers dollars.

A proposed class action lawsuit filed in the BC Supreme court on November 21, 2025 accuses the federal and B.C. government of keeping property owners in the dark amid the Cowichan Tribes Aboriginal title ruling. Sharma does not think so. The Attorney General's ministry now says it "has always been to protect private property, both in litigation and negotiation". Whose private property is clearly the question on the public's minds.

"B.C. is home to the most famous ostrich farm in the world, but it is the people who have had their heads in the sand. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty,” said abolitionist Wendell Phillips in 1852, “power is ever stealing from the many to the few.” It’s quintessentially Canadian to be oblivious to the autocracy of one’s own governments. Especially in British Columbia, where the premier is mounting an existential threat to the future of his own province."

Commentary: Bruce Pardy. THE NATIONAL POST. ibid.,

The road ahead has become all that more bumpy in determining whose property rights are whose. The public has relied on the goodwill of the provincial government to fairly represent all sides interests and Sharma has been instrumental in effectively tipping that scale for the indigenous peoples in what could be perceived as a serious conflict-of-interest issue for Sharma going forward.