Consultation with aboriginals is crucial to changing place names from colonial past

Vancouver

Fittingly for an explorer, Captain George Vancouver had nerve in spades when he arrived on the shores of British Columbia's coast in 1792, albeit 9,000 years after the first prehistoric settlers.

Captain Vancouver promptly named the stretch of water between the coast and Vancouver Island the Strait of George for King George III, British monarch at the time. Latterly, it has become known as the Strait of Georgia. It was, needless to say, a time before the term 'duty to consult' was known.

Those three words are now acutely familiar to anyone doing business in British Columbia. They are at the core of aboriginal title and rights issues as the courts define what type of ownership first nations can claim in terms of land and resources.

What is clear is that governments have a duty to consult aboriginal groups who exercise rights - either through past habitation or through hunting, fishing or gathering - in places where commercial interests arise.

In the past two years, British Columbia's premier Gordon Campbell has taken up the concept of consultation and endorsed it, prompting a sea change within his government. Once perceived as a critic of aboriginal rights, Mr Campbell has become their biggest champion in recent years. And when it was suggested the Strait of Georgia be renamed the Salish Sea - to pay respect to the Coast Salish people - he was willing to consider it.