David Eby’s secretive bid to advance UNDRIP is falling apart under public scrutiny.

“Toxic” and “overreaching” were some of the words used by B.C. Premier David Eby in reaction to the B.C. Court of Appeal decision in Gitxaala v. British Columbia, a judgment that affirms that a proper interpretation of the province’s DRIPA legislation and section 8.1 of the B.C. Interpretation Act, advanced by David Eby himself when he was the province’s Attorney General, renders UNDRIP justiciable and enforceable as the law in British Columbia.

(UNDRIP is the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, while DRIPA is British Columbia’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, the specific provincial legislation passed to implement UNDRIP’s international standards into B.C. law.)

So outraged is the Premier that he is seeking both to appeal the Gitxaala decision to the Supreme Court of Canada, which is a very unwise legal strategy, and to introduce amendments to the legislature to try to “court-proof” DRIPA from any further judicial interpretation, thereby seeking to undo the legal effect of the judgment in Gitxaala.

We need to be very clear as to what is happening here.

During the debate on DRIPA in the legislature in late 2019, government ministers of the day waxed lyrical that DRIPA and UNDRIP created no new rights, had no legal force, did not apply to private land, and did not provide a veto. Those assurances were used to justify passing DRIPA, which resulted in the B.C. Opposition unanimously supporting the legislation. It turns out that the government’s assessment and promises were neither correct in substance nor valid legally.

Read the full article at Without Diminishment: The deceptive UNDRIP scheme is unravelling in B.C.