Jody Wilson-Raybould is the former minister of justice and attorney general of Canada.
In 2016, when I was the minister of justice and attorney general of Canada, I gave a talk to the Assembly of First Nations that addressed proposals to implement the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) through legislation. My message to the chiefs was clear and unequivocal: “…simplistic approaches, such as adopting the Declaration as being Canadian law, are unworkable and, respectfully, a political distraction to undertaking the hard work to actually implement it.”
I imagine many of you today – Indigenous and non-Indigenous – may agree with that statement. But this was not the case in 2016; I was attacked by many, both within and outside government.
As the political and legal controversy rages over DRIPA, the UNDRIP legislation that passed in B.C. in 2019, it is not too late to heed earlier warnings. Principled and pragmatic pathways forward remain available.
DRIPA – and the federal UNDRIP Act (UNDA), which passed in 2021 and is effectively identical – is high-level and unclear in how it was to be implemented. Both laws lack transparent and effective legislative mechanisms around how UNDRIP – which is important as a framework for reconciliation – would be translated into stepwise shifts in laws, policies and practices within the Canadian context.
While Ottawa’s and B.C.’s proposals importantly acknowledged the long overdue work of upholding Indigenous rights in legislation, they did not provide process or guidance on the how.
Read more at The Globe and Mail: B.C.’s UNDRIP law was doomed from the start