Good morning,

There’s got to be a better way for governments of all stripes – provincial, federal, Indigenous – to keep British Columbians informed of crucial discussions aimed at squaring historic and court-affirmed Indigenous rights with modern circumstances.

If the past few years of communication missteps on this file weren’t enough reason to figure it out, this past week added more impetus.

Last Monday, I began getting angry e-mails demanding to know why we hadn’t covered Ottawa’s Feb. 20 news release heralding three agreements between the Musqueam and the federal government.

The e-mails suggested we were deliberately suppressing the story. The truth is much simpler: I missed the news release. Indeed, I can’t find any news coverage of the agreement in the few immediate days following the release.

Turns out, I wasn’t the only one in the dark.

The preamble in the release makes reference to fisheries stewardship and marine emergency management. The Musqueam had their fishing rights recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada in the landmark 1990 Sparrow decision, so an agreement on implementing those rights makes sense.

It’s not until the bullet points that an educated and careful reader can decipher that the agreements cover “Aboriginal rights including title within their traditional territory.” That traditional territory encompasses the western half of the densely populated Lower Mainland and those rights go well beyond fishing and stewardship.

Spurred on by the accusatory e-mails, I asked reporter Justine Hunter – who has decades of experience covering Indigenous issues – to look into what was happening.

Last Monday, almost two weeks after the low-key news release dropped, Justine asked for the text of the documents. (The text wasn’t publicly posted until a week ago.)

Justine zeroed in on whether the agreements impact private property rights in one of the largest urban areas in the country.

Her focus is one the federal government and the Musqueam should have anticipated.

Questions about how private property is impacted by Indigenous rights has been one of the most-discussed public policy questions in British Columbia since last August’s B.C. Supreme Court decision involving the Cowichan. The judge in that case concluded Aboriginal title is a “prior and senior right” to land, over and above the “fee simple” title that private landholders have.

Since then, lawyers for the Cowichan have repeatedly pointed out their claim never included a demand for private property, though whatever intentions they had, the judge threw the issue of private property into consideration anyway.

Likewise, last week the Musqueam were put on the defensive when their agreements became public.

Wade Grant, the newly elected Liberal MP for Vancouver Quadra who is also a prominent Musqueam member, issued a statement on social media stating in boldface that the agreements “do not infringe on private property rights and will not alter ownership of privately held land.”

A spokesperson for Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada said the deal creates a path forward to negotiate Musqueam’s rights and title, rather than pursuing litigation in the courts.

“The recently signed Musqueam agreements do not affect private property. Suggestions otherwise are false,” the spokesperson, Pascal Laplante, said.

Except the agreements themselves don’t actually say that, points out lawyer Thomas Isaac of Cassels Brock & Blackwell LLP.

“To say Aboriginal title is acknowledged within the territory is obviously a very vague statement, so to say that private property is not affected by the agreement is not accurate,” he said. “What is accurate is that we don’t know if the agreement affects private property, because the agreement doesn’t set out where within the Musqueam-asserted territory that the Musqueam hold title.”

Complicating things further was the realization, after media reporting, by neighbouring Indigenous groups about the impact of the agreements on their own claims.

The chair of the Squamish Nation Council, Sxwíxwtn (Wilson Williams), said his nation is “deeply concerned” that Musqueam may be negotiating for lands that fall within Squamish traditional territories.

“Squamish Nation was not consulted or meaningfully engaged by the federal government prior to the announcement of these agreements,” he said, adding his nation has asked for an urgent briefing from Ottawa.

On Monday, Culture Minister Marc Miller, who was formerly Crown-Indigenous relations minister, told reporters the agreements have “nothing to do with” private property.

He accused right-wing parties of using the issue of private property rights as a “cynical attempt to try to whip up votes.”

He attacked B.C. MLA Dallas Brodie and her OneBC party, saying they walked into an MP’s office – apparently Grant’s – and behaved “in a bigoted fashion.”

Brodie last week shared a photo taken inside Grant’s office, showing the Musqueam flag alongside those of Canada and B.C., and said Grant was in a “gross conflict of interest” and should resign.

Grant said the behaviour was “as low as you can get.”

Brodie’s fringe approach to Indigenous issues is in part what got her ejected from the BC Conservative caucus. So it’s no surprise she picked up on the Musqueam agreements.

Perhaps, if the agreements had been fulsomely and transparently communicated in advance and British Columbians had a basic understanding of why they were necessary, she wouldn’t have had the ammunition.

This is the weekly British Columbia newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.