OTTAWA — Culture Minister Marc Miller says a rights acknowledgment agreement between the federal government and the Musqueam First Nation has “nothing to do with” private property.

He says instead that the agreement signed last month is a small step forward for a First Nation that has been fighting for its rights ever since British Columbia was settled.

The government says the agreement recognizes Musqueam Aboriginal rights “including title within their traditional territory,” which the nation asserts is an area encompassing much of Metro Vancouver.

Critics have suggested the agreement could affect private property ownership, but Miller says right-wing parties have been using the issue in a “cynical attempt to try to whip up votes.”

He singles out B.C. legislature member Dallas Brodie and her OneBC party, saying they walked into an Indigenous MP’s office and behaved “in a bigoted fashion,” in an apparent reference to an incident last week at the office of Vancouver Quadra MP Wade Grant.

Miller told reporters in Ottawa on Monday that the Musqueam are not asking for people to be “dispossessed” but are “just asking for the fair deal they have never gotten.”

He says that “if we truly believe in reconciliation,” it can’t be something that must be “strong-armed” via the courts.

The former Crown-Indigenous relations minister also referred to last year’s court ruling that confirmed the Cowichan Tribes hold Aboriginal title over about 300 hectares of land along the Fraser River in Richmond, B.C.

The ruling, which says the Crown’s granting of private titles on the land “unjustifiably” infringed on the Cowichan title, is being appealed by the B.C. government.

It has also triggered concerns about the implications for private property rights.

Miller says “opportunistic political types” and “a bunch of ignorant people” were weaponizing the ruling, which was about acknowledging rights of one of the “more oppressed Indigenous groups in B.C.”

Brodie last week shared a photo taken inside Grant’s office, showing the Musqueam flag alongside those of Canada and B.C., saying on social media platform X that Grant was displaying a “gross conflict of interest” and should resign.

Grant, a member of the Musqueam First Nation, said on X that a member of Brodie’s staff entered his office unannounced and began recording without consent.

“They walked through my office filming and trying to agitate people for a reaction,” he said, adding later that it was “as low as you can get.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 9, 2026.

— with files from Alessia Passafiume in Ottawa

The Canadian Press