First Nations leaders and the B.C. public have reason to be frustrated with Premier David Eby, writes Gary Mason.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Canadian Press
If ever there was a government that appeared in over its head, that seemed ill-equipped to navigate the complex, often intractable public policy issues that provincial administrations face every day, it’s B.C.’s New Democrats.
There’s a reason Premier David Eby’s personal popularity has fallen off a cliff: people are losing faith in his ability to steer the province through the choppy waters governments inevitably face. On the contrary, the NDP is making things worse.
The list is long but a recent storyline that stands out is the disastrous experiment with drug decriminalization. Didn’t work. Massive public backlash.
Meantime, Mr. Eby has taken the province’s relatively sterling fiscal track record and blown it to smithereens. B.C. is forecasting a deficit of $13.3-billion for 2026-27, $12.2-billion the following year and multiple billions the year after that. Why? Because Mr. Eby and his colleagues refuse to make tough choices.
He is now grappling with another huge problem: Indigenous relations. Recent court cases that gave Indigenous groups ownership over Crown land and privately held property have left the government scrambling.
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Some of these court decisions are being blamed on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), which Mr. Eby, as the former Attorney General of B.C., helped draft. Passed in 2019, it created a binding law for the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP. That act, in turn, affirmed Indigenous rights to self-determination, lands and culture.
Last August, a B.C. Supreme Court judge handed down a decision that shocked many. In Cowichan Tribes v. Canada, the judge awarded the First Nations group the rights to a broad swath of land in Richmond that was once their fishing grounds. The judge ruled Aboriginal title existed beyond the province’s land title system. While DRIPA was a consideration, the judge said the province’s Land Title Act was never intended to bar a declaration that Aboriginal title applies to lands held in fee simple.
More recently, the B.C. Court of Appeal found that the province’s mineral claims staking system was “inconsistent” with UNDRIP.
These cases prompted Mr. Eby to pledge to amend the Declaration Act and related Interpretation Act to better protect the province from rulings that could negatively impact ownership rights in B.C.
But one day after saying that, and telling Indigenous leaders that was his plan, he announced he was suspending the yet-to-be-disclosed sections of these acts for three years instead, which would conveniently kick the can down the road beyond the next election.
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If you’re dizzy or confused reading all this, you’re certainly not alone. And now everyone is irate, including First Nations who feel betrayed by a government they felt had their best interests at heart and was serious about reconciliation.
If the NDP loses the next election, and at the rate it’s going there is every chance it will, the Conservatives have vowed to revoke DRIPA in its entirety. The consequences that would flow from that decision are immense.
One can argue that DRIPA was not completely thought through or that the government did not imagine its potential consequences. But it was brought in for a reason: relations with First Nations need to be a priority in a province where vast tracts of land – almost the entire province – are under claim by Indigenous groups.
There have already been several judgments that have given First Nations big chunks of that land. In the most recent, the B.C. Court of Appeal overturned a lower court decision and ruled that the Nuchatlaht First Nation has title over its entire 210-square-kilometre claims on remote Nootka Island.
It seems like every day there is another ruling awarding more land to another First Nations group. DRIPA was intended, in part, to demonstrate good faith with First Nations, to be a sign of appeasement or at least understanding in the hopes that future land disputes could be solved amiably and that Indigenous groups could become true partners in the province’s prosperity.
Now, First Nations leaders are angry with Mr. Eby and are threatening to stop co-operating with the NDP in the future. Who can blame them under the circumstances? The rest of the B.C. public, meantime, is frustrated with a government that seems to only be good at one thing: putting a wrong foot forward every chance it gets.
The economic and cultural ascent B.C. seemed to be on not that long ago now seems like a millennium ago. The province has more problems than the government seems to be able to handle. And many of them are of their own doing.