CALGARY—The British Columbia Conservative caucus is spinning out of control. In August, the provincial party lost seven MLAs, weeks into the tenure of newly elected party leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay, who chose to push racism into the mainstream of B.C. politics.

Reconciliation is a big political issue in B.C. since its lands are unceded territories of many First Nations. What this means is that First Nations people never ceded or legally signed away their lands to the Crown or Canada. Sec. 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, “recognizes and affirms the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada.” The province does not hold title to 95 per cent of the land.

In 2019, then-premier John Horgan’s NDP government unanimously passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) “to align provincial laws with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples or UNDRIP.” According to APTN News, this made “B.C. the first jurisdiction to develop legislation in response to UNDRIP.”

Moving Forward with Urgency to Sustain and Grow Canada’s Forest Sector

The legislation “mandated that the government create an action plan to uphold Indigenous rights, foster reconciliation, and require consent-based decision-making agreements.” Now-Premier David Eby played a prominent role in drafting the legislation when he served as the attorney general. Six years later, he’s taken aim at it following a number........

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