NewsForBC / Politics & Law · Published 2026-10-15

“An avalanche of money”: what the books and rulings behind a viral land-title video actually say

Alberta lawyer Leighton Grey warns the Cowichan decision threatens private property across Canada. News for BC checked his sources. Some numbers hold up; several big claims do not.

By News for BC Staff · Published Oct. 15, 2026

VANCOUVER — Oct. 15, 2026

A 24-minute clip with more than 230,000 Facebook views comes from a March 31, 2026 episode of Talk Truth, a Calgary Christian talk show on Daystar Canada. The guest, Cold Lake, Alta., lawyer Leighton Grey, argues that Ottawa pours money into Indigenous programs without results or accountability, that B.C. courts are "taking away and destroying private property," and that land acknowledgments are a guilt campaign. An on-screen banner reads: "Indigenous budget now exceeds Canada's national defence spending."

The money

Grey's figures come from An Avalanche of Money, a November 2024 Fraser Institute study by Tom Flanagan, a University of Calgary professor emeritus and former Stephen Harper adviser. The study does say Indigenous spending nearly tripled from about $11 billion (2015) to more than $32 billion (2025), that specific claims were settled four times faster than before, and that Ottawa "now spends more on Indigenous Peoples than it does on national defense."

That last line is now out of date. Ottawa says it spent more than $63 billion on defence in 2025–26 to meet NATO's 2 per cent target, roughly double the $32 billion Indigenous figure.

Grey also goes further than his source:

• "Have not improved, not at all." Flanagan found the well-being gap between First Nations and other communities narrowed from 19 to 16 points (2016–2021), mostly because of the Canada Child Benefit.
• "$76 billion in a single year." In the study, $76 billion is the estimated liability from class-action settlements as of 2023, not annual spending.
• "All the worst crimes" happen on reserves. The study says no such thing, and Grey offered no evidence.

His transparency point has a basis. On Dec. 18, 2015, Indigenous Affairs Minister Carolyn Bennett ordered an end to compliance measures under Harper's 2013 First Nations Financial Transparency Act and suspended court actions against bands that hadn't complied. Indigenous Services Canada confirms the act has not been enforced since.

Cowichan: what the court decided

On Aug. 7, 2025, in Cowichan Tribes v. Canada (Attorney General), 2025 BCSC 1490, Justice Barbara Young declared Cowichan Aboriginal title over part of the Tl'uqtinus village site in Richmond after a 513-day trial (2019–2023). She held that fee-simple titles held by Canada and the City of Richmond in the title lands are "defective and invalid."

Grey is right that private owners were never formally notified: in 2017 the court refused Canada's request to notify them. But his claim that owners are being told to "sell or get off the land" is not supported. The ruling says "the Cowichan do not challenge the validity of the private landowners' fee simple interests." It finds that Aboriginal title and private fee simple "will exist in the same land at the same time," and orders B.C. to negotiate in good faith. The notices owners did receive were letters from Richmond warning that their titles could be affected. All parties have appealed.

Analysis: There's a real uncertainty here. No court has said what coexisting title means for a homeowner in practice, and Richmond argues the two cannot coexist. That is worth covering. But saying owners have already been ordered off their land goes beyond the ruling.

Other claims

• "Indians ... cannot own land." Partly true: reserve land is held by the Crown, and under Delgamuukw (1997) Aboriginal title can be surrendered only to the Crown. Status First Nations people can own land off reserve.
• Canada "the only country" to adopt UNDRIP. False. Bolivia's Law 3760 (Nov. 7, 2007) made the Declaration's 46 articles national law.
• Simcoe "ended slavery in the British Commonwealth." False. His 1793 act banned bringing enslaved people into Upper Canada but freed no one. Slavery ended across the British Empire under the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.
• "Half of the land in New Brunswick." Accurate. A court described the Wolastoqey claim as covering more than 50 per cent of the province, although courts have since excluded private industrial forest land from any ownership claim.

Books and papers mentioned

1. Tom Flanagan, An Avalanche of Money: The Federal Government's Policies Toward First Nations, Fraser Institute, 2024 (free).
2. C.P. Champion and Tom Flanagan (eds.), Grave Error, True North/Dorchester, 2023, ISBN 979-8867599317.
3. C.P. Champion and Tom Flanagan (eds.), Dead Wrong, True North, 2025, ISBN 979-8274120593.
4. Delgamuukw v. British Columbia, [1997] 3 S.C.R. 1010.
5. Cowichan Tribes v. Canada (AG), 2025 BCSC 1490.

Sources

• Talk Truth episode: https://gotalktruth.ca/talk-truth-03-31-26-leighton-grey/
• Fraser Institute study: https://www.fraserinstitute.org/studies/an-avalanche-of-money-the-federal-governments-policies-toward-first-nations
• Cowichan ruling (PDF): https://halalt.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/justice-young-re-cowichan-tribes-v.-canada-attorney-general-08-07.pdf
• 2017 notice ruling: https://rosenberglaw.ca/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/2017bcsc1575.pdf
• Richmond letter: https://www.richmond.ca/__shared/assets/letter77872.pdf
• Delgamuukw: https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/1569/index.do
• Defence 2%: https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/news/2026/03/canada-achieves-the-2-of-gross-domestic-product-defence-spending-benchmark.html
• FNFTA statement: https://www.canada.ca/en/indigenous-northern-affairs/news/2015/12/statement-by-the-honourable-carolyn-bennett-on-the-first-nations-financial-transparency-act.html
• ISC FNFTA Q&A: https://www.sac-isc.gc.ca/eng/1399312715586/1565375183936
• Bolivia Law 3760: https://web.oep.org.bo/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Ley_3760.pdf
• 1793 Act: https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/1793-act-to-limit-slavery-in-upper-canada
• Wolastoqey claim (CBC): https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/wolastoqey-title-claim-court-decision-1.7387471
• Forest land excluded (CBC): https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/supreme-court-wolastoqey-title-ruling-9.7214953