Juno News - Repeal UNDRIP, Fire Eby

00:00:00.000 Hi, Juno News. Alexander Brown here back for another episode of Not Sorry. Thrilled to be

00:00:07.440 here. Thrilled to read all your comments. And while you are here, go to junonews.com slash

00:00:12.640 not sorry for 20% off. The situation in British Columbia, it continues to deteriorate. Was the

00:00:18.760 road to hell paved with good intentions or has this always been skullduggery of a sort? BC's

00:00:25.460 Court of Appeals put down a precedent-setting game-changer this week. With immediate effect,

00:00:31.120 every piece of legislation in BC must now seemingly be interpreted through the lens of the United

00:00:36.360 Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, or UNDRIP. This was previously viewed as

00:00:41.760 a non-binding instrument, a virtue signal. But look where it's gotten us. And this could have major

00:00:47.400 ramifications for the rest of Canada. Surely we can't have the province run by 200 plus small

00:00:54.980 governments that have no democratic relationship to 95% of BC citizens. The economy will be

00:01:01.860 unworkable, the province ungovernable. Watch this urgent video from our guest today, friend of the

00:01:07.380 show and leading BC common sense advocate and commentator, Caroline Elliott. Another massive

00:01:13.280 court ruling in BC, and this one could lead to an overhaul of much of our legal system. The BC Court

00:01:17.880 of Appeal has drastically expanded the role of the courts to allow them to strike down BC laws for

00:01:22.960 inconsistency with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples known as UNDRIP. Now much of

00:01:29.360 UNDRIP is inconsistent with many of BC's laws and it's behind some of the most problematic policies in

00:01:34.780 BC like the secretive land agreements that threaten our democracy and our prosperity. This really means 1.00

00:01:39.900 that the court has now given itself the ability to determine whether provincial laws align with UNDRIP

00:01:44.560 and where that isn't the case, the court will now get to decide what action is required. This undermines

00:01:50.960 our elected government's ability to act in the public interest and could lead to some serious upheaval.

00:01:56.160 For those working in the natural resource sector, this means more uncertainty, less investment and more

00:02:00.960 job losses. For all of us, that potential lost investment means lower revenues to fund the programs and

00:02:06.560 services we rely on. It's another layer on top of an already unworkable situation in BC. Our government should

00:02:12.960 never have adopted UNDRIP in the first place because it's fundamentally inconsistent with our existing

00:02:18.240 laws and with our government's ability and duty to act in the public interest. The message I have for

00:02:24.160 David Eby is clear. Repeal your UNDRIP legislation or resign. Unworkable indeed. Through Trudeau era

00:02:32.320 sabotage, NDP malfeasance or acquiescence, a province with a growing land use crisis where lenders are being

00:02:39.680 denied loans under suddenly uncertain matters of property rights, it has now been pitched into even

00:02:45.680 further crises. The BC conservatives, at least, are finally stepping up. John Rustad has resigned,

00:02:52.400 months too late, and the party under interim leadership is calling for an immediate recall

00:02:57.120 of the legislature. To repeal DRIPA, BC's now codified interpretation of UNDRIP with immediate effect.

00:03:04.240 It's a start. But British Columbians have been well and truly caught out by the NDP's work,

00:03:10.000 primarily in secret and behind closed doors, that sought to limit the rights and bring their very

00:03:15.440 fee-simple reed property rights into question over the past few years. If it can happen here,

00:03:21.040 and I'm coming to you from the rainy BC Lower Mainland along with my guest, it can happen anywhere.

00:03:27.280 The virtue signals can come home to roost. And in breaking news as I'm taping here,

00:03:32.160 BC's 22nd Premier Duff Batullo was just removed from a bridge that carried his namesake

00:03:37.360 for an Indigenous title the public cannot pronounce. Well-meaning actors on this file who do exist,

00:03:44.160 have been boxed out by profiteers, radicals, and even initially foreign-funded NGOs,

00:03:49.920 like Coastal First Nations, which we explored in my episode with Brian Lilly over the weekend,

00:03:54.880 which is the name of an organization, not a legitimate assembly of Indigenous Canadian interests.

00:04:00.720 It's a mess. And British Columbians now poll overwhelmingly in their concerns on this file.

00:04:07.120 They're filling up assembly halls and events with major concerns about what this means for their land

00:04:11.520 rights, water rights, air rights, even charter rights. There can't be two laws of the land,

00:04:17.920 surely. And DRIPA is being positioned to supersede all else. That's not the Canada we can or should be.

00:04:25.120 We can find a path to reconciliation that doesn't involve selling out our population and giving

00:04:31.680 ourselves over to an industrial complex and dishonest far-left radicals. Join us for this

00:04:37.520 important chat. And first, a word from our sponsor. This is a campaign called Unsmoke. Look, folks,

00:04:43.840 it's time to modernize Canada's rules on nicotine. Alternatives to cigarettes like heated tobacco vaping

00:04:48.640 products and oral smokeless products don't burn tobacco or produce smoke. They aren't risk-free,

00:04:53.840 but the growing body of scientific evidence shows that they have the potential to be substantially

00:04:58.000 less harmful than smoking. Despite this, Canadians are banned access to critical information and even

00:05:03.120 some products. Nicotine pouches remain banned in convenience stores. And current laws ban

00:05:07.760 communication about the risks of these products compared to cigarettes. It's unbelievable. The

00:05:12.400 evidence is here. The tools exist. Canadians should have the freedom to know. You can learn more by

00:05:16.800 visiting unsmoke.ca. Our recurring guest and friend, Dr. Caroline Elliott, joins the show.

00:05:22.160 Caroline's with the Aristotle Foundation Public Land Use Society. She's doing vitally important work

00:05:27.520 in the common sense political stream in British Columbia. Caroline, thanks for joining us.

00:05:31.040 Thanks for having me on again. Now we have to stop meeting like this. I caught you at the sold out

00:05:35.920 public land use event last week in Vancouver, where you spoke to a full room of concerned British

00:05:40.080 Columbians who are witnessing UNDRIP and DRIPA, its Canadian interpretation,

00:05:44.560 bring into question their very rights once thought to be inalienable. What's the latest? Tell our

00:05:49.600 audience about this bombshell ruling and why should we all be concerned?

00:05:53.760 Well, look, so it's a complicated ruling. It's very technical. It can seem almost obscure in some ways.

00:06:00.400 It relates to the consultation required in the Mineral Tenures Act. But the actual bigger question is,

00:06:09.360 I think, probably more accessible to people and is more important in many ways.

00:06:14.240 So when UNDRIP, or the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, was first brought into

00:06:21.360 BC's laws, it was done through the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA,

00:06:26.640 it was unanimously accepted in the BC legislature, something I've always thought was a mistake. I

00:06:30.560 don't think it should ever have been brought into BC law, primarily because it's inconsistent with many of

00:06:36.240 BC's laws. Now, the way that I think they squared that circle was to say, look, this doesn't change

00:06:42.880 BC laws, it just requires us to bring laws into alignment, kind of, and I think they maybe even

00:06:47.680 thought, as we see fit, right? Some wiggle room there where you really need the law to be the way

00:06:52.240 it is today. This judicial ruling changes that. It actually makes it an issue for the courts to decide

00:06:59.280 if laws are counter to what's in that UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

00:07:05.920 It's a big problem. As I say, many, many BC laws are not consistent with UNDRIP. It also removes the

00:07:12.080 ability of our elected decision makers to make those decisions about what to do when that's the case, and

00:07:16.480 it puts it in the hands of the courts. So it's one of those really big, technical, but very important

00:07:22.400 decisions coming down the pipe. Yeah. And your breakdown of this ruling,

00:07:27.200 I've been reading through your tweet. I'm going to just nuke the name here. Gitshala, Gitshala.

00:07:33.760 It highlights how UNDRIP now has, in Canada, DRIPA, has immediate legal teeth in BC. And the concern

00:07:40.000 would be, is this going to supersede our existing laws? What do you see as the biggest risk

00:07:45.840 to everyday peoples right now, property rights, something like that?

00:07:50.800 Well, there's all kinds of things in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

00:07:55.760 that are counter to BC laws, as I say. But some of them are things like, you know,

00:08:01.520 Article 26, where it talks about how Indigenous Peoples have the rights to own and use, essentially,

00:08:07.840 and the words are different, but effectively, the land by which they own by nature of it being their

00:08:14.000 traditional territory. Well, how does that translate into BC laws when the traditional territories of

00:08:20.320 British Columbia's 200-plus First Nations cover over 100% of the province due to overlapping claims

00:08:27.280 between groups? How do you square that? Something like Article 32, I believe, that talks about the free,

00:08:35.040 prior, informed consent of Indigenous groups before any projects can proceed within their lands.

00:08:40.400 Okay, well, how do you square consent, or essentially like a veto-style decision-making power,

00:08:47.600 as it's been interpreted by BC in many agreements under UNDRIP or DRIPA? How do you square that with

00:08:53.440 the ability of our elected decision-makers being able to make decisions in the public interest?

00:08:58.320 So something like the Site C project, which is a very necessary project, I think most people would

00:09:03.600 agree, was opposed by certain First Nations. Could a project like Site C actually proceed in today's,

00:09:10.320 UNDRIP world, especially if we're being bound now by the courts, to take that into account. So

00:09:17.680 lots of different ramifications on that front.

00:09:19.520 Yeah, and expanding by the day. Look, doctor, there's obviously a leadership question here. Lenders

00:09:25.760 are already pulling back sort of post-Cowachan ruling, like in that Richmond building project.

00:09:30.880 How is EB's behind closed doors or cowardly hands-off approach to these court rulings,

00:09:37.280 already hitting families in the economy? And, you know, the BC conservatives have finally moved on

00:09:42.240 from John Rostead and are rallying strong into the holidays. What do you want to see from BC's

00:09:47.680 leadership, like in this apparent vacuum over the last few months on this file?

00:09:51.840 Well, the BC conservatives are absolutely right to have shifted significantly, I think,

00:09:56.560 since John Rostead's departure in calling for an immediate repeal of DRIPHA. That's, again,

00:10:01.440 did I explain this? It's the legislation that puts UNDRIP into BC's laws. So that's the right call. I

00:10:07.840 think that absolutely has to happen. It's an incredibly damaging framework in a country that

00:10:13.760 actually already has really well-established constitutional rights that protect the rights

00:10:17.760 of Indigenous peoples in various ways. Now, yeah, we're seeing huge uncertainty on the land base.

00:10:22.960 We're seeing concern around lenders pulling out of deals in Richmond. We're seeing all kinds of title

00:10:29.520 claims being made all around British Columbia on the Vancouver Island, in the interior, in Coquitlam,

00:10:36.080 you name it. And it's only going to keep happening. As I say to people all the time,

00:10:40.560 the Cowichan title ruling was not the end of something. It was the beginning of something.

00:10:45.120 It was the first of many. It actually wasn't even the first title declaration, but it's the first one

00:10:49.840 over private property. So we have a very complex situation here. It does require really strong

00:10:55.360 leadership. And what we've seen from the provincial government is an unwillingness to fight these

00:11:01.280 claims adequately in court due to a directive issued by David Eby himself when he was Attorney General.

00:11:07.120 It tied the BC lawyers hands behind their back when they were making their arguments against some of

00:11:12.240 these claims. That directive is still in place, by the way. He has not walked it back. So when we see

00:11:19.120 these other claims being made, we should be very worried about the case that the government's putting

00:11:23.360 forward. And there's a whole host of other issues, but I want to give you a chance to ask a question

00:11:26.720 before I keep yakking. No, that's why you're here. You're the expert in the room. And I imagine

00:11:30.880 that has ramifications for the memorandum of understanding as well, which I know that for

00:11:35.440 our listeners from coast to coast, probably particularly Alberta, they're thinking they

00:11:39.840 can finally get a pipeline to the Pacific Northwest coast here. And what they're seeing is, wait,

00:11:45.680 who's in charge? When it comes to these resource projects, there's even talk of great reporting

00:11:52.400 recently on this Tall 10 gold mine where there's these pre-vote payouts to alter the course of the

00:11:58.800 project. I mean, how concerning is this for resource jobs and for the so-called sort of Team Canada

00:12:05.440 recovery here? Yeah. And I mean, in that case with the big gold mine and the payouts, look,

00:12:11.920 mining is a crucial industry for BC. It's so important. And what the government has done is it's

00:12:16.240 walked into these kind of agreements with these different First Nations in the key critical mineral

00:12:22.000 mining area of British Columbia, actually the size of England, like we're talking a large landmass here,

00:12:28.480 and they're entering into these agreements that give all kinds of decision making powers,

00:12:32.400 including consent based agreements. And again, as I said earlier, like if consent is required,

00:12:36.960 it means the nation's approval has to happen before a project can be developed and before permits are

00:12:42.560 issued for that to happen. So when you enter into these kinds of agreements, you're placing essentially

00:12:49.040 a veto power in the way that the BC government has interpreted these provisions in the hands of

00:12:54.000 very small governments who do not necessarily share the same public interest mandate that the

00:12:58.160 provincial government does. In fact, their mandate is to represent the interests of their members,

00:13:02.480 not the interests of the broader public. That's their job and it's their duty and they do it,

00:13:06.320 I think, well in many cases. But here we are, right? So you have projects of national

00:13:11.440 importance, provincial importance, whether it's a gold mine or a pipeline from Alberta to BC's coast,

00:13:16.000 and then you have the government sitting there saying, however, we're going to place the ultimate

00:13:19.760 decision in the hands of very small governments with very small populations that may not share that

00:13:24.800 interest. Yeah. Now you have a major national post feature that came out last week and you nailed

00:13:31.440 David Eby's so-called atonement project for Canada's supposed original sin. Can you unpack how

00:13:39.440 this mindset is fueling these land use overhauls? Can you tell our audience a little bit about that?

00:13:43.920 Yeah, I'd love to. So look, David Eby has surrounded himself with advisors who are on the reconciliation

00:13:53.200 file, including his, I think the title is his special counsel on reconciliation, like a key person

00:13:58.560 in the premier's office who's earning a lot of money to advise the premier on what direction he

00:14:02.640 should be taking on all of these things. And if you actually go back and read what these guys have

00:14:08.080 written, I would say it's actually very radical. It's revolutionary, the language they use. They

00:14:14.560 talk about a utter transformation of human affairs. They use the, they use words like rupture and they

00:14:21.280 use the word painful change, sacrifice. These are the things they're talking about and they actually use

00:14:26.960 the word original sin to describe, you know, Canada's early beginnings and the basis of our entire

00:14:32.400 nationhood essentially. So, and so I think what's happening is, is a lot of these policies, like one

00:14:38.240 of the most common questions I actually get asked when I speak with business groups or even campus

00:14:43.280 clubs or wherever I speak, cause I speak on this a lot lately. I get asked like, why are they doing

00:14:48.080 this though? Like, it's not even good for them politically. This just seems crazy. It's not good

00:14:51.680 for the economy. It's not good for British Columbians. And the answer I give them is like, I think that they're

00:14:57.520 really committed to this very radical agenda. And it almost sounds conspiracy theorists to talk about,

00:15:03.600 but I encourage people to actually check out the article. I link to all the places where all

00:15:06.960 of these things have been written. So you can see the words for yourself and, and make that

00:15:10.640 determination on your own. Yeah. And it's not, it does feel like a conspiracy theory. And yet I had

00:15:15.920 Brian Lilly on the show over the weekend and we went into like the Rockefeller Brothers Fund

00:15:22.400 sort of degrowth playbook and it, it sounds too crazy to believe, but like, there is this whole

00:15:28.000 outline of like how we're going to help these like Canadian NGOs that we're going to fund, like just

00:15:34.160 absolutely sabotage resource development and, and degrow the economy. And so it's, it's the crazy is in

00:15:41.040 the wool there. It's the dye is in the wool. Like there, there is, I think there are meaningful

00:15:46.560 reconciliation efforts that have been largely boxed out in places by, by these radicals,

00:15:52.320 by these groups and, and by unfortunately the wrong leaders at the wrong time. Caroline,

00:15:57.920 you've been sounding the alarm on, on these potential impacts for over 15 years. Like it

00:16:02.160 was in your, your 2010 MA work. What, I like looking for positives here. Like what recent consensus

00:16:10.400 building on this file, you know, feels validating to you now? Like what are, what are you encouraged by

00:16:16.000 when it comes to maybe the public's response to this? Yeah. You know, when I first started,

00:16:21.040 like, it's true, I have been doing this for a long time and I started kind of innocently

00:16:24.880 enough poking around at the, the theory behind all of this, uh, back in 2009, 2010, when I started my

00:16:30.640 master's and, uh, and I wrote about it then just saying like, okay, but how does this actually relate

00:16:35.120 to like our liberal democratic principles, our democratic foundations, but also the public

00:16:39.360 interest, prosperity, uh, individual rights, uh, those kinds of things. And so that took me down

00:16:44.880 an interesting rabbit hole that, you know, I, I left, I, you know, when I finished my master's,

00:16:49.280 I went and did some, some other things and, um, and then ended up actually, I worked on site C for many

00:16:54.800 years, as you may know, and had some experience of what that, what this file looks like on the ground

00:16:59.920 there. Um, but, and then even into my PhD, so not to kind of belabor that point, but I have been

00:17:06.160 thinking about this for a very long time. And for a long time, I was not the only one, but there were

00:17:11.200 very few voices willing to speak up on this. And I think because even when you look at the, um,

00:17:15.280 unanimous adoption of UNDRIP in the BC legislature, there was a feel good sense to all of this. It kind

00:17:21.360 of like, what's the harm we're all trying to be good people. We all recognize as I do that there have

00:17:26.480 been some real injustices in the past and let's try to do what we can to, to make it right. And

00:17:30.960 it just felt so good, I think to a lot of people, but I kept thinking, yeah, but when you really get

00:17:36.800 down to it, like how do you square some of these really fundamental problems like democratic rights

00:17:42.080 for all British Columbians, like the public interest for all British Columbians, how do you

00:17:45.600 square that with, with decision-making being handed to very small groups that don't represent the

00:17:50.160 public interest and that don't, that we have no role in electing as British Columbians,

00:17:53.680 like you can't really do that. So that's why I was down that rabbit hole in the first place.

00:17:57.760 Um, it has been really good to see even, um, when I started speaking up on the provincial

00:18:03.280 park closure at Joffrey Lakes, just a wider segment of voices saying, hey, that doesn't seem right.

00:18:08.400 Like BC's parks belong to all British Columbians. Right. And then you move on to things like some

00:18:12.800 of these land use agreements and you move on to these, some of these court rulings. And I think

00:18:17.120 what's happened is the public has just gradually steadily become aware of the fact that,

00:18:21.120 you know, this probably isn't going to work. And so it has been validating, but it's also

00:18:26.720 important and I'm really pleased to see it. Yeah. And I think it's good to find the positive

00:18:30.880 there because especially through your advocacy, your leadership here, this now rates as a majority

00:18:35.840 concern on Canada's left coast. And it is a left coast, like the politically speaking and the fact

00:18:41.200 that it, that resonates even with a kind of virtue signaling voter base, I think is encouraging. And

00:18:48.080 you're building momentum against these trends. I, now I'm thankful that the BC conservatives are

00:18:53.920 getting it together because we have so many other domestic issues to solve for as a, as a working

00:18:59.120 parent and active community member on the North shore, what else rates for you as a pocketbook issue

00:19:04.320 besides, you know, just sounding the alarm on, on, on DRIP and DRIPA.

00:19:08.800 Yeah. And, and, and on that note, I will say it's, before I get into your actual question,

00:19:14.480 it's been amazing to me, the non, or the lack of like partisan nature to concern on that

00:19:20.320 reconciliation front and the direction that's been taken. I have people who I know vote liberal. I

00:19:25.040 have people I know who even vote NDP who say, you know, things don't really seem like they're going

00:19:29.360 on in the right direction on this. I have, I have moms in North Vancouver coming up to me and saying,

00:19:33.520 I agree with you. I'm worried. I have people in Kitsilano at the coffee shops in, in, in crunchy

00:19:38.880 granola mom, Kitsilano, like talking about your videos and like how they're worried about this

00:19:42.720 stuff. So there is, there is, you know, it, that, that is penetrating the market.

00:19:46.800 Yeah. And, and, and I think that there's an understanding, like this isn't just private

00:19:50.560 property rights, although of course that's like a huge piece of it, but also this is our economy.

00:19:54.880 This is, this is affordability in, in many, in a big sense, but yeah, there's, there's other issues

00:19:59.680 that people are talking about as well. People are, I think, worried about the state of this

00:20:05.600 economy in this province, which is partially due to, but not exclusively due to the reconciliation

00:20:10.560 file, but there's a whole host of other government policies that are standing in the way. You look

00:20:13.920 at those mill closures, right? Where we lost, I think it's 350 jobs so far on the island with the

00:20:20.160 crafted mill shut down. We've saw another 100 mile house. That's devastating. That's sending,

00:20:24.640 it's a very small community up there. It's sending people to the food bank. It's, it's awful to

00:20:29.520 see. And you know, it's, there's so many pieces to this. There's the fact that 70,000 British

00:20:36.080 Colombians left BC last year for other places in Canada, where they see more opportunity. Like

00:20:41.200 we should be the place where people come for opportunity. And instead we're losing the,

00:20:46.400 our brightest minds. So I, you know, I, I, there's a whole bunch of concerns that people have

00:20:51.920 across the spectrum from economic to healthcare, to everything else, to public safety, to drug policy.

00:20:57.360 It's hard to know where to begin. Uh, but this province is, um, on the wrong track on a lot of

00:21:03.040 files.

00:21:03.920 Yeah. I, I seemingly bucked that trend. I arrived here, I guess, to do some

00:21:08.000 on the ground reporting on, on sheer calamity. And so if you could pitch a common sense reform,

00:21:14.960 say to the balance reconciliation with a kind of temper tempering of what I call reconciliation

00:21:20.800 incorporated, what would it look like to protect indigenous rights and all British Columbians'

00:21:26.640 rights and interests? Is it as simple as repealing DRIPA and starting over? Is it firming up treaties

00:21:32.800 that are outstanding or is it just punting David Eby and the degrowth anti-civilizational left from office?

00:21:39.200 Well, certainly the last one is a must do, uh, but it's not the only one punting David Eby and his

00:21:46.080 crowd from office, as I think the public is going to be eager to do in the next election,

00:21:50.400 um, is, is necessary to do the things, uh, that we need to do. So, uh, do we need to repeal DRIPA?

00:21:57.360 Absolutely. We have to, it's a must do as well, but there's more, I mean, there's countless agreements

00:22:02.320 that have been signed that very irresponsibly take away government's ability to act in the public

00:22:07.520 interest. We need to walk those back to make sure that government can still make decisions in the 0.90

00:22:11.520 public interest. Um, and they're all over the province, these agreements, but you have to walk

00:22:15.440 those back. Uh, I think we want to get back to, um, you know, we have to accept the fact and, and, and

00:22:20.880 be aware of the fact that we live within a, we operate within a constitutional framework in Canada

00:22:26.000 under section 35, which guides this whole issue. Um, and we need to, um, I think get back to that,

00:22:32.960 which required consultation where, you know, consultation with affected indigenous groups for

00:22:37.440 for projects that affect them accommodation where necessary. Um, you know, and you have to prove in

00:22:43.520 courts the depth of your consultation. Like this is not just, um, like, you know, feel good stuff.

00:22:48.800 It's, it's meaningful. Uh, but at the end of the day and the case law since 1982, when our constitution

00:22:54.480 was adopted, um, has been clear government needs to be able to make decisions in the public interest.

00:23:00.720 And we have to get back to that. And I think we can.

00:23:03.600 Wise words from our resident BC political expert, Dr. Caroline Elliott. Thanks for joining us.

00:23:09.200 Thanks for having me.

Juno News - December 09, 2025

Repeal UNDRIP, Fire Eby

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript