British Columbia’s government has proposed suspending sections of its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA).
At a press conference on Thursday, B.C. Premier David Eby said that when the Act was introduced, it was to set out a framework by which the government could work with First Nations partners on addressing key concerns on issues including treaties, language preservation, care for Indigenous children and youth and unequal health outcomes and poverty.
“This act created an action plan that allowed us to prioritize work when developed in partnership with First Nations and it has been working,” Eby said.
“We have aligned 20 different laws in British Columbia, including laws that prohibited First Nations from owning property in the nation’s own name, laws that should have been addressed a long time ago.”
Eby said the Act has created massive job initiatives, such as the Eskay Creek Mine and Red Chris Mine in Tahltan Territory, as well as partnerships on clean energy across B.C.
“Recently, we had a decision from the Court of Appeal that, instead of the step-by-step incremental approach of the action plan, that the UN declaration was incorporated into British Columbia law overnight, and as I described it to Indigenous leadership today, instead of taking, eating the elephant one bite at a time, the court has invited us to do it all at once, and that is just not possible,” Eby said.
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“So we’ve been presenting this challenge to our First Nations partners. How do we preserve what’s been working about the Declaration Act while at the same time addressing the very serious litigation risk that is present for the province of British Columbia as a result of the Court of Appeal decision?”
Eby was referring to a December 2025 decision from the provincial appeals court. In its ruling, the court agreed with the Gitxaała and the Ehattesaht First Nations, which argued that the government’s obligations under the Declaration Act are legally enforceable.
Days after the ruling, Eby told attendees at a BC Chamber of Commerce event that his government would look at amending the Declaration Act. Now, he’s saying the changes are “non-negotiable” from his government’s perspective.
Eby said on Thursday that during the first round of meetings with Indigenous leaders, they heard “loud and clear” that any proposed amendments to the act were “totally unacceptable.”
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“They felt the process was rushed and that the entirety of that approach was wrong,” Eby said.
“So we took that feedback back and we withdrew that proposal. Today, I presented another proposal to Indigenous leadership that responds to government’s concern about legal liability, but also seeks to respond to the Indigenous leadership’s concern about preserving the act and ensuring that we take the time to be able to respond to what the actual court instructions are to us on this.”
Eby said the specific proposal put forward on Thursday would put a temporary pause on some sections of the act for up to three years.
“It could be less,” he said, “but whatever is required in order for us to get final instructions from the Supreme Court of Canada for the Gitxaała matter to be fully determined, and to take that information and sit down together and work out what the best path forward is. That was the proposal that we brought forward.”
He added that the temporary pause relates directly to the Gitxaała decision.
More to come.
-with files from The Canadian Press
Well, the statement that it is BC’s SRIPA is incorrect. Both the Federal Government under Justin Trudeau in 2021, and the BC NDP in 2019 adopted the UN DRIPA without even giving it a cursory review, let alone the scrutiny that should have been applied to it. The Federal HOC sat for 74 days in 2021. There is no record in the Hansard of a review. The Provincial Legislature sat for 65 days in 2019 and again, no record of review. They adopted it and said let the cours decide. They did, and have now got all politicians backtracking because they didn’t do their due diligence in the first place. Time to remove these elected officials in an election!
pause the whole bloody program
It will be paused just long enough for us to get re-elected and then we will turn it back on again…. ndp strategy
We will have to see which conservative wins the leadership race.
Looks like Ms. Elliott, if she is successful will be no different then Eby.
“Caroline has a PhD in Political Science from Simon Fraser University, specializing in Canadian liberal democracy as it relates to Indigenous self-governance”
I fully expect the title to my house to be extinguished by the courts. At least I will see all the land acknowledging, socialist, NDP voting boomers, have their properties seized as well.
The NDP have to go.
You are posting propaganda too fast Global….Slow down
All DRIPA and T&R should all stop until the FNs can in detail explain what the final end state of full acceptance and closure to T&R would look like for all of us. Forget about when just what. The let the rest society of vote to agree or not.—
Right now they are leading virtue signalling politicians blindly into a death by thousands without ever outlining the final order of state.
Enough of that BA. Look below at what Bob B has outlined, that is outrageous!
Suspending it is as close to repealing it as we going to get until the next election. So fine with me for now!
The NDP only gained power by less than 400 votes, and that was before this gong show of DRIPA, Debt and deficit, the shutting of industry after industry and mishandling of about every crisis so far.
Bring on an early election and referendum on this matter: I’ve no doubt how 1.3 million home owners are going to vote.
The whole dripa thing needs to be cancelled until FN give us factual evidence of their unmarked graves scam
pause the whole bloody thing, useless bloody NDP
It needs to be fully repealed. You only have look at the following to see the abuses of DRIPA by the FNs here in BC.
1) Loss of dock access on private property and use of water in Pender Harbour
2) 3 to 4 months per year of lost public access to Joffrey Lake Park (a provincial taxpayers asset) And a Fee to pay to use it when open.
3) Competing property rights now for private, municipal and federal lands in Richmond, Fraser River, and the Queen Charlottes Islands.
4) The deliberate slow walking of
FN archaeological digging on private land Lytton and Kamloops.
4) FN logging of old growth forests in Fairy Creek, Port Alberni and Fort Mcloud.
5) 75% of FN agreements all done under NDA with regards to details, terms, payments and settlements So the public can’t see how much we paying them.
Rather one sided story. Had interview from First Nations group, but none from the point of view of everyone else?
This only is a good start, more steps needed.
Bahaha
Hey JV what were you saying about how the vast majority were in favour of DRIPA, and that some of commenters here were just a minority?