BURSTWhile B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma wouldn’t commit to amending the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) this fall after a summer of consultations with First Nations, she did say she is “hopeful” a path forward can be found.
“Our government has been contacting various leaders. They gave us ideas. And we’re making really good progress,” she told reporters at the Union of B.C. Municipalities meeting in Vancouver on Tuesday. “I will have more to say once we are at the point of things being finalized.”
Premier David Eby had put off amending the law until the fall legislative session after failing to guarantee enough votes to pass changes in the spring and being forced to backtrack.
As these consultations loom in the background, a session debating the law punctuated the first two days of the annual UBCM conference, which is being held in Vancouver from Sept. 14 to 18.
Local communities made clear they want to know how changes to DRIPA may impact them, and they want to be more involved in the amendment process.
“There are concerns that local governments are not being sufficiently involved in shaping policies that have a direct impact on them,” UBCM president Cori Ramsay said.
Sharma did pledge to involve local governments more.
“We will commit to that in any form that you want, that we can work on those next steps together,” she said.
UBCM brought in several panels of experts and provincial government decision-makers to explain the law and provide views on what DRIPA means and how it could be changed.
Some want the law repealed altogether, afraid it will invalidate many important provincial laws and cede legislative control to the courts.
Many in this camp believe DRIPA creates more uncertainty, particularly on resource permit approvals, and how to resolve disputes between nations.
“There’s no certainty or clarity among really important simple questions,” said Chawathil First Nation Chief Aaron Pete, who hosts the Nuanced podcast and often takes conservative stances.
On the other side of the spectrum, panellist Merle Alexander, an Indigenous lawyer with expertise in resource law, called DRIPA “one of the most ambitious commitments to legal reform in the Commonwealth.” He sought to dispel what he sees as misunderstandings about the law.
Alexander argued it is simply a legal framework for consent, not a way to give nations a “veto,” as some have suggested. He also pushed back on the idea that DRIPA is an example of reconciliation becoming a “runaway freight train.”
Many panellists criticized the dialogue around the law and Indigenous rights in general, with some blaming the B.C. Conservative Party.
“There’s a lot of political pandering out there right now, and that’s getting us nowhere,” said Simpcw First Nation Chief George Lampreau. “It’s creating a divide, and it’s being used — we’re being used — to create that divide.”
A complicated legal framework
To set the stage for the debate, UBCM first brought up Reece Harding, a local government and Indigenous rights expert from the law firm Young Anderson, to explain the law and provide historical context.
DRIPA, otherwise known as the Declaration Act, is based on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which affirms the right of self-determination for Indigenous people worldwide.
The United Nations General Assembly passed UNDRIP in 2007. Just four countries voted against it: the United States, New Zealand, Australia and Canada.
Chuck Strahl, Canada’s Indian affairs and northern development minister at the time, summed up the government’s opposition by saying UNDRIP fails to “recognize Canada’s need to balance indigenous rights to lands and resources with the rights of others.”
Fast-forward 12 years, and the B.C. government opted to create a law that applies UNDRIP to all the rest of the province’s laws. The B.C. legislature passed the new law, DRIPA, unanimously in 2019.
Two years later, it followed this up with the Interpretation Act, taking things a step further by legislating that all of B.C.’s laws must be construed as consistent with DRIPA, and therefore must meet the provisions laid out in UNDRIP.
Things continued to move along relatively uncontroversially until December 2025, when a B.C. Court of Appeal ruling invalidated part of the Mineral Tenure Act, finding that the way online mineral claims are made is inconsistent with UNDRIP because First Nations aren’t consulted.
This decision landed like a bombshell because it was the first time the court had stepped in and used DRIPA and the Interpretation Act to invalidate a law.
Premier David Eby — who helped craft the laws himself as attorney general at the time — tried to hit the brakes, arguing that was not the law’s intention. Eby says DRIPA was written to compel the government to make these changes, not the court.
His government has appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada. Harding reckons that case probably won’t be heard until 2027.
So in the meantime, Eby has promised to amend DRIPA so the courts can’t start invalidating all sorts of provincial law. But this didn’t go over well with many First Nations leaders, who don’t want the Declaration Act altered at all.
Others, on the conservative side of the political spectrum, want nothing less than full repeal.
“Bottom line, we are at a crossroads today,” Harding said.
Lampreau blames the government’s lack of effort.
“It’s been out on the shelf since 2019, and the government didn’t put enough effort into rolling it out and giving it some legs before they said this isn’t working,” he said.
Most panellists agreed on one thing: whether DRIPA is the path forward or not, people need to find a path for First Nations to work together and with other levels of government. And the divisive atmosphere surrounding Indigenous rights and land title is not helping.
“We need to work together,” Alexander said.
Pete echoed that, despite his opposition to DRIPA.
“I will do whatever it takes first to bring the temperature down in the room and not make this the central fear of most British Columbians,” Pete said. “We need to work together.”