Around 50 concerned residents in the Kamloops area attended a OneBC Party event this Thursday, seeking answers about a shocking reality that many had only recently learned: their entire city, including private homes, farmlands, and businesses, is already the subject of an active Aboriginal title lawsuit.

For ten years, the Stk'emlupsemc te Secwepemc Nation (SSN), comprised of the Skeetchestn Indian Band and the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, has been pursuing a sweeping Aboriginal title claim for approximately 12,543 square kilometres of its traditional territory. This area includes the entire City of Kamloops and the Sun Peaks resort area. The claim targets Crown land, private fee-simple property, railways, and mineral rights, and was initially filed, in part, to stop the proposed Ajax copper and gold mine.

The Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc gained national attention in May 2021 after falsely claiming to have “confirmed” the discovery of the remains of 215 children at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. The band has since backpedalled on the claim, admitting they don’t know what’s under the ground aside from anomalies, but many Canadians remain in the dark about the truth and instead have adopted a “I'm just a colonizer on stolen land” mentality since 2021.

If the courts follow the precedent set in the recent Cowichan Tribes v. Canada ruling, where the B.C. Supreme Court granted Aboriginal title over fee-simple land in Richmond, the two bands could gain title over more than 12,000 square kilometres of Kamloops and the surrounding region.

While the case has been moving through the courts for a decade, residents say they were kept completely in the dark, a pattern now familiar to British Columbians, considering that the same thing happened to Richmond private land owners affected by the Cowichan case.

Despite three separate hotels in Kamloops cowering to cancel culture mobsters who didn’t want the public to attend the information session, cancelling the venue on the party, the OneBC Party continued with the meeting outside of the Prestige Hotel, and Rebel News was on site to capture their message and the concerns of the people in attendance.