Rob Shaw is the CHEK News legislative correspondent and political columnist/commentator for CBC, Glacier Media, The Line, Northern Beat and Political Capital. He is co-author of A Matter of Confidence.
When the tiny community of Okanagan Falls voted earlier this year to incorporate into a municipality, its residents thought they were getting — well, Okanagan Falls.
But five months later, mired in delays and silence from the B.C. government, nobody seems sure whether the area south of Penticton will actually become Okanagan Falls. It may have to change its name to something else entirely.
The core of the issue is the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA), which mandates B.C. align its laws with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in consultation with Indigenous Peoples. The BC NDP under the Eby government has interpreted this as a commitment to consult First Nations communities on virtually all aspects of provincial government decision-making and public land use.
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