CRANBROOK – B.C. Conservative Party leader Wilf Hanni has threatened to launch a province-wide referendum on the proposed Recognition and Reconciliation Act, should Gordon Campbell's B.C. Liberals be returned to power on May 12.

“My party will fight this action all the way to the Supreme Court if Premier Campbell refuses to either abandon his plans to enact this legislation or refuses to hold a binding referendum to let the voters decide,” said Hanni from his East Kootenay riding headquarters today.

Early this year, the B.C. Liberals released a discussion paper outlining the creation of a new legal framework to recognize aboriginal rights and title in B.C.; the formal drafting of the law was expected to be completed by March, but the Liberals postponed it to after the election.

Hanni, a 61-year old oil industry consultant, has made the proposed legislation a key platform issue in this closely-fought Kootenay riding currently held by Liberals cabinet minister Bill Bennett. He claims that such legislation, if ever written, will give natives a veto over all government decisions and title to 100 percent of the province.

“It could result in the loss of title to your own home,” Hanni warned.

Such concerns were addressed on April 27th by Geoff Plant, the Liberals' former Attorney General and Minister For Aboriginal Relations, who gave a speech to the Association For Mineral Exploration BC to dispel concerns about the proposed Liberal policy.

"Existing land and resource interests including fee simple" (your home and mine) "are expressly protected,” said Plant, who has worked as an advisor and negotiator to devise the new framework. “Crown title is expressly protected.”

Confusion about the new legislation has stemmed from the Liberals' decision to move forward quickly with the legislation, based on little more than a discussion paper; in the meantime, politicians like Hanni have been free to speculate about what the final legislation will contain.

“It’s frustrating to hear Hannni saying that 100 percent of the province is on the block,” says East Kootenay NDP candidate Troy Sebastian, a treaty negotiator and member of the Ktunaxa First Nation.

“There’s all this 1950s-styled hyperbole at play here, like suggesting people are going to lose their homes.”

Christopher Pollon a contributing editor at The Tyee.