Indigenous rights law among top issues at Union of B.C. Municipalities convention

Municipal leaders from across British Columbia are gathering in Vancouver today for the annual Union of B.C. Municipalities convention, with the province’s Indigenous rights legislation among the main issues on the agenda.

The convention runs until Friday. UBCM president Cori Ramsay says the future of B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA, will be a leading concern for many of the nearly 2,000 delegates expected to attend.

Ramsay, a Prince George city councillor, says local governments remain strongly committed to reconciliation and have spent years building relationships with First Nations. She says recent court rulings have created uncertainty, including a successful First Nations challenge to B.C.’s mineral tenure system.

In that case, the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled that DRIPA should be interpreted as incorporating the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into provincial laws with immediate effect.

Premier David Eby withdrew a plan in April to suspend or amend DRIPA after strong opposition from many Indigenous leaders. Members of the provincial Conservatives have called for the law to be repealed.

Ramsay says delegates will also ask Eby’s government to reverse clawbacks to community-housing funding, address unprecedented mental-health and addiction issues in communities across B.C., and renew funding for FireSmart, a program intended to improve resilience to worsening wildfires.

Eby and B.C. Conservative Party Leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay are scheduled to attend the conference later this week.