I just saw a video on YT, and it was so wrongheaded that I felt compelled to write a rebuttal.

Basically it's broken down in three main parts:

How šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmasəm St (Musqueamview St) raised havoc, implying that having non-English names for streets is bad.

So it's a bit sad that even in 2025 some places still can't handle unicode or something I guess. But like this article https://globalnews.ca/news/11265368/vancouver-man-institutions-new-indigenous-street-name/ or the official gov't web page at https://vancouver.ca/people-programs/musqueamview-st.aspx says, just use Musqueamview St as the name when this is the case and you'll have no issues. Like, the system can't handle 최진리 as a name so it has to be inputted as Choi Jinri. How is that a problem?

Second, there's mention of the fallout of the Cowichan title lands decision. (Overview of that decision is available at https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/multimillion-mansions-cowichan-title-richmond-1.7607542 but TLDR is that a judge did the right thing and gave the land back to the rightful indigenous owners.) Now, there is a real problem here if you're a private homeowner in that area - the legal uncertainly is making it tough to get a mortgage or sell your place. Even so, remember that "the Cowichan did not seek a declaration that private titles in the area were 'defective and invalid'" so every indication is that they'll be reasonable and work out some kind of reasonable deal for the affected folks.

And more importantly, giving the land back is the right thing to do. If I steal your bicycle, and then sell it to someone named Third Guy, but the police find it, shouldn't you be able to get your bicycle back from Third Guy without having to pay him anything? Now however, I'm in trouble, since I'm the one who took Third Guy's money - so he can come after me. And, you can also come after me - maybe you had to miss some work because you couldn't get there without the bicycle, so now I have to compensate you. This is basically the situation the gov't is in right now - they've going to have to pay back both the individuals and businesses that got hurt by the defective title as well as the tribes that they took the land from.

The video goes further and makes the claim that these indigenous nations may split up and leave the country. As much as I'd like for the indigenous nations to have this right, unfortunately and sadly that's actually not the case. My understanding here is that while the Constitution does recognize indigenous sovereignty as a sui generis right, it's not the same thing as Crown sovereignty which continues to exist over the same land. For example, in the event of an invasion from a certain country in the South, the Canadian Armed Forces are still the ones obligated to defend the territory. Also, the CRA still can tax non-indigenous folks who live on that land (see https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/indigenous-peoples.html ). Basically, Canada as a country isn't losing any territory as a result of these decisions - it just has to start respecting the rights of the indigenous owners regarding their native land.

Finally, the video makes one good point. Very little of the gov't spending for indigenous folks is actually directly reaching the indigenous communities that need it, and that is something that needs to change. But even here it's filled with errors - so what if healthcare is no longer in the top three spending? Doesn't mean the cost going down or that we'll get less healthcare. And servicing the debt - well that's basically paying back for services we already spent, so it's wrong to say that there's no benefit to the individual taxpayer here (basically it's like you paid for your meal with a credit card and now you're paying off the credit card - you still got the benefit of the meal).

Also - there's going to be a revolution because taxpayers have to spend more supporting the country's elderly population as time goes on. Erm... I'm going by gut feeling here but I imagine most of us are happy to pay taxes knowing that this helps out out retired parents, grandparents, etc. Perhaps there will be some tweaks necessary in the specific formula used down the line.. but then we'll make those tweaks as necessary.

In conclusion the only thing I can find myself agreeing with is that we need to make sure more money directly reaches indigenous communities in need.

FYI this is the video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7l2lTdgLxpk