{"id":15357,"date":"2025-12-06T07:15:40","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T10:15:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/12\/06\/eby-says-b-c-may-revise-dripa-legislation-worries-court-is-in-drivers-seat\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T07:15:40","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T10:15:40","slug":"eby-says-b-c-may-revise-dripa-legislation-worries-court-is-in-drivers-seat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/12\/06\/eby-says-b-c-may-revise-dripa-legislation-worries-court-is-in-drivers-seat\/","title":{"rendered":"Eby says B.C. may revise DRIPA legislation, worries court is \u2018in driver\u2019s seat\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>British ColumbiaB.C. Premier David Eby says he is open to revising the province\u2019s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). His comments come after B.C.\u2019s Court of Appeal found that the legislation is incompatible with the province\u2019s current system used to grant mineral rights because it fails to ensure First Nations are notified when claims are made in their territory.Gitxaa\u0142a chief says they\u2019ve had to resort to courts to force province to modernize rights claimsAndrew Kurjata  \u00b7 CBC News  \u00b7 Posted: Dec 05, 2025 9:27 PM EST | Last Updated: 3 hours agoListen to this articleEstimated 5 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.B.C. Premier David Eby says he\u2019s concerned a recent court ruling on provincial DRIPA legislation is taking too much power away from elected officials. (Mike McArthur\/CBC)B.C. Premier David Eby says he is open to revising the province\u2019s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA).His comments come after the B.C. Court of Appeal found that the legislation is incompatible with the province\u2019s current system used to grant mineral rights.The ruling, released Friday, was in response to a legal challenge from the Gitxaa\u0142a and  Ehaattesaht First Nations against the province.The nations have argued the current system of allowing mineral claims to be registered automatically for a small fee online violates the duty to consult impacted First Nations, as laid out by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The provincial DRIPA legislation, which was intended to incorporate UNDRIP, was adopted by the province with unanimous support from all parties in the B.C. legislature in 2019.Gitxaa\u0142a Chief Coun. Linda Innis said her nation has long advocated for the province to update its mineral rights regime, saying the current system results in people staking claim to their territory without the nation\u2019s knowledge.\u201dThere is absolutely no consultation with the nation, no notification,\u201d she said. \u201cAnybody with a few dollars can stake a claim online,\u201d she said, calling it an \u201cantiquated\u201d system.She added she\u2019d rather work directly with the province but said her nation had to resort to the courts because the province was \u201cdragging its feet,\u201d on modernizing laws.A duty to consultWhile all three judges in Friday\u2019s ruling agreed that the province had a duty to consult First Nations, they differed in their interpretation of the legislation and how that would impact the province\u2019s ability to manage mineral rights.Two of the judges, Justice Dickson and Justice Iyer, wrote that allowing the current mineral rights regime to continue meant \u201cadopting an unduly narrow approach to the legal effect of the Declaration Act and UNDRIP.\u201dFirst Nations Leadership Council representatives hold up printed copies of the UN Declaration bill tabled in Victoria in November 2019. (Chantelle Bellrichard\/CBC )\u201dProperly interpreted,\u201d they wrote, the adoption of the declaration has an immediate impact on all laws in B.C., and that in cases where there are inconsistencies, it is incumbent on the province to immediately resolve them to bring them in line with UNDRIP, and for the court to intervene when they fail to do so.UNDRIP and the current mineral claims rules in the province, the justices said, \u201care inconsistent.\u201d The dissenting opinion, Justice Riley, disagreed, arguing that while the executive branch of government \u2014 meaning elected leaders \u2014 has a duty to bring laws in line with UNDRIP, it is not the court\u2019s place to get involved in areas where there are inconsistencies between existing laws and the new legislation. \u201cNowhere in the Declaration Act is the judicial branch invited or called upon to adjudicate claims of inconsistency between UNDRIP and British Columbia\u2019s laws, and doing so would take the court outside of its proper role in our constitutional democracy,\u201d he said.Eby worried court \u2018in driver\u2019s seat\u2019 Speaking to reporters at an unrelated news conference in Surrey, B.C., Eby said he had similar worries.\u201d[The decision] potentially puts courts in the driver\u2019s seat, instead of British Columbians,\u201d he said. He added the government would be reviewing the decision and \u201cif necessary, amend the Declaration Act to ensure that our original intention when we introduced it is clear.\u201d\u201dIt is absolutely crucial that it is British Columbians, through their elected representatives, that remain in control of this process, not the courts,\u201d he said of implementing UNDRIP, noting that the province\u2019s work with First Nations has delivered \u201cbillions of dollars\u201d in the form of economic projects and he didn\u2019t want to see that undone by backlash to court rulings.The opposition B.C. Conservatives, meanwhile, responded to the ruling by again calling on the governing NDP to repeal the DRIPA legislation altogether.\u201dThis ruling highlights exactly what happens when government tries to legislate reconciliation through vague and undefined promises,\u201d said MLA Scott McInnis, deputy critic for Indigenous relations and reconciliation in a written statement. \u201cUncertainty helps nobody.\u201dGovernment to governmentEby, though, said he remains committed to working with First Nations, and the most likely outcome would be that the government amends the DRIPA legislation to put more explicit power back in the hands of elected officials.\u201dToo much rides on it, in terms of our province\u2019s prosperity and certainty going forward,\u201d Eby said, adding the courts \u201cseem to have some confusion\u201d around \u201cwhat was clearly intended when we introduced this legislation.\u201dMembers of the Gitxaa\u0142a Nation celebrate the court ruling in a handout photo provided Dec. 5, 2025. (Gitxaa\u0142a Nation)For her part, Chief Coun. Innis said she would much rather work with the province outside of the court system in a government-to-government relationship.\u201dI hope that they\u2019re ready to roll up their sleeves and work with us,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are here and we\u2019re looking forward to working with B.C. and all parties to implement today\u2019s precedent-setting decision.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>British ColumbiaB.C. Premier David Eby says he is open to revising the province\u2019s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). His comments come after B.C.\u2019s Court of Appeal found that the legislation is incompatible with the province\u2019s current system used to grant mineral rights because it fails to ensure First Nations are notified [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15358,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[121,118,1],"tags":[120,116],"class_list":["post-15357","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-british-columbia","category-indigenous","category-uncategorized","tag-british-columbia","tag-indigenous"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15357","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}