Dear Editor,
Recently, three Conservative MPs held a roundtable in Maple Ridge about theoretical threats to property rights.
The room included developers, realtors, and cattlemen. Conspicuously absent: constituents, homeowners, or any Indigenous representation.
The message: be afraid of a court ruling about land in Richmond.
Earlier last month, as reported in the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows News, the Friends in Need Food Bank ran out of food before closing. They say that the number of families accessing the food bank has basically doubled in the past five years alone: from 516 families to now more than 1,000.
Also reported by other media recently:
• B.C. insolvency filings were up 16.2 per cent for just the first quarter of 2026
• 60,000 jobs eliminated by Canada Post and the federal government alone
• Unemployment rose to a six-month high in April
• Gas prices in the Lower Mainland have surpassed 224 cents per litre
• Grocery monopolies continued facing findings of mislabelled products, misweighed meat, and price-fixing — with fines that amount to a rounding error on their quarterly profits.
I am a Maple Ridge homeowner.
I am exactly who Marc Dalton claims to be fighting for.
And I’d like to be clear: the Cowichan decision is not what keeps me up at night.
The cost of groceries keeps me up at night.
The neighbour who just filed for insolvency keeps me up at night.
The family in line at a food bank that ran out of bread keeps me up at night.
That’s not a property rights crisis. That’s a cost-of-living crisis — driven by monopoly power, wage stagnation, and politicians performing concern while holding roundtables for developers.
Mr. Dalton has had opportunities to eliminate surveillance pricing, force grocery giants into strict, standardized unit pricing to combat shrinkflation, or support fellow Conservative Ryan Williams’ private bill to close the ‘efficiencies defence’ loophole enabling anti-competitive mergers.
Instead, he would rather spend his time stoking up rage over property rights (that aren’t being threatened).
My MP has a task force on property rights. I’m still waiting for the task force on the thousand households who can’t afford dinner.
Jullin Aberly, Maple Ridge