April 27, 2026
Comox Valley
K’ómoks First Nation’s Letter to Tara Armstrong
COMOX, B.C. — APRIL 27, 2026
Dear Ms. Armstrong,
When you invoked the phrase “blood and soil” — an ideological foundation for the Holocaust — to describe the K’ómoks Treaty Act, you revealed so much more about yourself than you did about us.
You showed your fundamental confusion about what it means for a people to have a relationship with land.
Our relationship to K’ómoks land is a practice — one of active stewardship, passed down through generations, grounded in responsibility and reciprocity rather than entitlement and exploitation. We do not “claim” this land because we believe we are superior. Quite the contrary: we have tended it, harvested it, protected it, and mourned its losses since the beginning of time.
You showed your inability to reckon with BC’s colonial legacy.
You seem to find it threatening that Indigenous peoples might have meaningful, enforceable rights over lands that colonial governments sold, parceled, and exploited without our consent. You seem to need to invoke the worst atrocities of the 20th century to drive your point home.
The court rulings that have rattled the provincial government didn’t create new problems. They named old ones. The dysfunction being exposed is the accumulated weight of 175 years of colonial policy: of selling land without consent, granting resource rights without consultation, and passing legislation explicitly designed to eliminate us. And now the Province is being asked to reckon with the truth.
That truth is uncomfortable. We understand that. But discomfort at the exposure of a wrong is a sign that this generation is moving toward a relationship with this land that future generations can inherit with dignity. No matter where they come from.
We have been stewards of this land since long before anyone thought to sell it for a dollar an acre. We will be stewards of it long after this debate has faded.
That’s not called ideology. That’s called relationship.
Respectfully,
K’ómoks First Nation
Media Contact
Melissa Quocksister
Communications & Engagement Consultant
K’ómoks First Nation
250 334 6515
