{"id":701089,"date":"2026-04-03T03:35:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T03:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/701089\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T03:35:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T03:35:18","slug":"b-c-proposes-to-pause-sections-of-dripa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/701089\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C. proposes to pause sections of DRIPA"},"content":{"rendered":"

British Columbia\u2019s government has proposed suspending sections of its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA).<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis act created an action plan that allowed us to prioritize work when developed in partnership with First Nations and it has been working,\u201d Eby said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have aligned 20 different laws in British Columbia, including laws that prohibited First Nations from owning property in the nation\u2019s own name, laws that should have been addressed a long time ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u201cRecently, 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,\u201d Eby said.<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo we\u2019ve been presenting this challenge to our First Nations partners. How do we preserve what\u2019s 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?\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t7:40
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRegional Chief of the BC Assembly of First Nations on proposed DRIPA changes\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Eby was referring to a December 2025 decision from the provincial appeals court. In its ruling, the court agreed with the Gitxaa\u0142a and the Ehattesaht First Nations, which argued that the government\u2019s obligations under the Declaration Act are legally enforceable.<\/p>\n

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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\u2019s saying the changes are \u201cnon-negotiable\u201d from his government\u2019s perspective.<\/p>\n

Eby said on Thursday that during the first round of meetings with Indigenous leaders, they heard \u201cloud and clear\u201d that any proposed amendments to the act were \u201ctotally unacceptable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMore on Politics
\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\u201cThey felt the process was rushed and that the entirety of that approach was wrong,\u201d Eby said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we took that feedback back and we withdrew that proposal. Today, I presented another proposal to Indigenous leadership that responds to government\u2019s concern about legal liability, but also seeks to respond to the Indigenous leadership\u2019s 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt could be less,\u201d he said, \u201cbut whatever is required in order for us to get final instructions from the Supreme Court of Canada for the Gitxaa\u0142a 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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He added that the temporary pause relates directly to the Gitxaa\u0142a decision.<\/p>\n

More to come.<\/p>\n

-with files from The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t4:13
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPremier David Eby to meet with First Nations leadership to discuss amendments to DRIPA\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t&copy 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"British Columbia\u2019s government has proposed suspending sections of its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA).…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":701090,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2],"tags":[2147,292881,292882,50,31750,80],"class_list":["post-701089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-canada","tag-dripa","tag-dripa-amendments","tag-news","tag-perspectives","tag-politics"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116338683437217270","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701089"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701089\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}