The B.C. government wants to temporarily suspend parts of DRIPA and the Interpretation Act, which enshrines the right of Indigenous peoples to own, use and control their traditional lands, territories and resources.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Canadian Press
British Columbia Premier David Eby has backed down on a loyalty test for his New Democratic Party caucus that could have triggered a provincial election this spring, abandoning a commitment to put contentious amendments to Indigenous rights law to a confidence vote.
Mr. Eby told reporters Monday that he retreated from his plans to put proposed changes to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA, to a confidence vote after the Indigenous MLA for Vancouver-Mount Pleasant, Joan Phillip, told him she could not vote for any amendments.
With a bare majority, his NDP government would need every caucus member to support the changes which are broadly opposed by Indigenous leadership across the province.
“That obviously changes the math for us,” he told reporters.
Last week, Mr. Eby vowed to put the changes to a vote in the face of strong opposition from First Nations leaders. Losing a confidence vote would force him to call an election, but the Premier insisted he had enough support to pass legislation.
“It is a confidence vote, absolutely, because this is work that we have to do as a government, and if we can’t do this work protecting against a very significant litigation risk for the province, then we’re going to have to find some other path forward,” Mr. Eby told reporters on April 8.
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Parliamentary conventions dictate that if a government is defeated in the House on a matter of confidence, then it is expected to resign or dissolve Parliament to pave the way for a general election.
Mr. Eby still hopes he can pass legislation with the support of opposition MLAs, now that the option to take down the government is off the table. The legislation could be introduced as early as next week.
The B.C. government wants to temporarily suspend portions of DRIPA and the Interpretation Act, which together established a legislative commitment to uphold the principles of UNDRIP. It enshrines the right of Indigenous peoples to own, use and control their traditional lands, territories and resources.
Mr. Eby said he needs to enact changes to respond to a B.C. Court of Appeal decision in December that found the province’s mineral claims regime is “inconsistent” with the government’s legislated obligations to uphold UNDRIP.
He has faced a strong backlash from First Nations leaders to the proposal to suspend parts of the law. On Monday, Mr. Eby conceded that he cannot secure the broad support of B.C.’s political leadership of First Nations. Instead, he is seeking the backing of some individual chiefs willing to work with his government to negotiate the next steps forward on reconciliation.
“If we can find a way with some chiefs to find that path forward for what happens after suspension, then we’re going to take that opportunity,” he said.
Mr. Eby’s government wants a three-year freeze on elements of its DRIPA regime while it pursues an appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada of a decision known as Gitxaała. That case challenged B.C.’s Chief Gold Commissioner over the province’s automated online registry system, which allowed prospecting and claims for mineral rights on Crown land. The Gitxaała First Nation argued the system was inconsistent with rights recognized in DRIPA.
“Properly interpreted, the Declaration Act incorporates UNDRIP into the positive law of British Columbia with immediate legal effect,” Justice Gail Dickson wrote in the majority opinion of the Court of Appeal last December.
Mr. Eby said that ruling creates a legal liability that encompasses all of B.C.’s laws, but First Nations leaders in B.C. have, through their major political organizations, argued the government has strongly overreacted to the B.C. Court of Appeal decision.
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“Both conceptually and as drafted, the proposed suspension is deeply flawed,” reads a letter to the Premier dated April 9, which was drafted by the First Nations Leadership Council. They represent the top three political First Nations organizations in B.C.
The letter said the government’s interpretation of the law and its response is effectively “shelving of key human rights legislation for a period of three years pending the outcome of the Province’s appeal of Gitxaala.”
Huy’wu’qw Shana Thomas, a member of the First Nations Summit political executive, which is part of the leadership council, and the hereditary chief of the Lyackson First Nation, said Mr. Eby’s efforts to bring “some” individual First Nations on board won’t repair the cracks in reconciliation that his legislative agenda has created.
There are more than 200 individual First Nations in B.C. and the political organizations that have rejected his proposed amendments are taking direction from the collective direction of those individual chiefs, she noted.
“He is stubborn,” she said. “This is going to create further division, the chiefs of British Columbia have been very clear.”