00:07:20.880I seem to recall that, was it last year or 2024, that the David Eby government transferred the entire Queen Charlotte Islands,
00:07:32.440these days known as Haida Gwaii to the local indigenous people. Once again, I believe that1.00
00:07:41.000was a fee simple transfer. They have complete authority to do whatever they like. Am I correct
00:07:46.500on this? Yes, largely correct. I know that that also flowed downstream from some court decisions
00:07:51.820as well that recognized Aboriginal title over the area. So it wasn't necessarily a unilateral
00:07:57.260decision from the provincial government or EV specifically.
00:08:00.980A lot of these land transfers seem to be flowing downstream from court decisions.
00:08:05.300Most of your viewers who are familiar with this file will know that 95% of
00:08:09.900British Columbia is what they call unceded territory.
00:08:13.160Unlike other provinces in Canada, we neglected to create treaties with
00:08:17.800First Nations, and so for lack of a better phrase, you could say that the
00:08:21.840ghosts of our colonial past are coming back to haunt us.0.85
00:08:24.720Well, the B.C. government does give the impression that it welcomes this and is falling over its feet to urge it along.
00:08:36.540One of the very first things that they did when they came to power in July of 2017 was to establish the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People as a core measuring stick for B.C.'s own legislation.
00:08:54.720Even the federal government had not done that, certainly no other province had, but ever since then, BC legislation has been viewed by the legislature through this United Nations document.
00:09:09.740What have we seen since then in terms of transferring control of land to indigenous peoples?
00:09:20.460Well, actually, it's a slight correction. So the federal government does have its equivalent to UNDRIP as well. I think they passed it in 2018, if I'm not mistaken. And DRIPA, which is the provincial legislation here in BC, which codifies the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, was actually passed unanimously in the House.
00:09:41.980There was no dissent, and there was actually very little debate about it as well.
00:09:46.560DRIPA is an interesting document because it's really an aspirational document, kind of like, you know, the Declaration of the Rights of Man.
00:09:57.180And so what they did is they actually passed additional legislation that said that every statute in B.C. going forward must be in accordance with DRIPA.
00:10:05.640This has caused enormous issues and was especially problematic after the Gitzala case, which ruled that B.C.
00:13:36.280uh you have tell us about indian uh what's an ipaca indian protected indigenous protected and
00:13:48.480conservation areas what are they so the indigenous consultation and protected areas
00:13:56.520you were actually bringing that to my attention earlier um it's i wanted to make you look good
00:14:02.020come on it's part of the well i mean it seems like i i think that that all runs downstream from the
00:14:07.940that the flawed theory that indigenous people are stewards of the land and so it would be
00:14:15.300more environmentally friendly if we provided them with more autonomy and self-determination
00:14:20.820and the amount of area that's being transferred in that sense is growing exponentially as you
00:14:26.580you noted earlier. So, okay, we're leaving the listener a little behind here. So what we're
00:14:34.460talking about is the Indigenous Protected and Conserved Area comes under the federal
00:14:42.880mandate from Environment Canada, in which they set off various areas and tell the local Indigenous
00:14:53.440people here. You have stewardship of this land. It will be up to you whether any development ever
00:15:01.200takes place. And I believe that those who want to can set terms of access. And there's quite a lot
00:15:10.200of British Columbia that is now falling to this. Way up north, up there, there's one
00:15:17.380Indian band that's laying claim to some astonishing. Let me just see if I can find it quickly.
00:15:25.440Is that the Talton Nation, Nigel? Yes.
00:15:28.540Yeah, so I think it's 11% of the province's landmass is what they're claiming.
00:15:34.180Yes, that's right. They're getting federal government support. Now, this is from a document
00:15:45.840I wrote seven years ago for another purpose, but in that year, Catherine McKenna was the
00:15:55.760environment minister, and she announced a $3.9 million grant to the Taltan central government
00:16:03.360to establish a protected and conserved area within their 90,000 square kilometer
00:16:09.520traditional area so i don't know that it was necessarily going to be the entire
00:16:15.68090 000 square kilometers but there is another one uh the nearby tal tan who is more ambitious
00:16:23.920and if you actually take a a a tally of all of these you're starting to actually move into
00:16:34.240double digits in terms of land area taken up by various forms of indigenous
00:16:40.960ownership or control and while it is very easy for people who think this is
00:16:49.660a wrong direction to look at David Eby the premier of British Columbia and say0.95
00:16:55.420the man is a dreamy fool he's just got some indigenous fascination and he wants0.95
00:16:59.620give the whole province back to the the back to the indians that would be one thing but i actually0.99
00:17:07.700think that there's rather more going on here than what's whizzing around in david eby's head for one
00:17:16.420thing the evidence of my own researches is that the federal government is involved in this at
00:17:23.060every level through the ministry of the environment and they have their agenda too
00:17:30.580which is to set aside a percentage of all of canada as some kind of parkland and reserve
00:17:40.100they call it the 30 30. can you expand on that a little
00:17:45.540the 30 30 sorry yeah the 30 of canada's land mass should be in some form of conservation
00:17:53.060protected status by 2030. There was 17-17, and I think they achieved 17% by 2017. That's
00:18:03.940more or less when I wrote this. They have larger ambitions, and what Mr. Eby is doing when he makes
00:18:12.260these kinds of gestures is feeding into that. Now, free parking lots in downtown Victoria is not
00:18:22.260going to contribute much to the federal government's 30 30 plans but it does have an
00:18:27.940impact as we discussed earlier with with what people can do with it or whether they can even
00:18:33.940go on to it and nobody apparently has any say if the if the um in the decision as to how those lands
00:18:42.740will be used but there is a larger agenda and you can sort of place the the as i say you can place
00:18:50.180the Richmond decision, you place the Queen Charlotte decision, you can place
00:18:56.180these protected and conserved areas, and you find yourself placing a
00:19:04.580tremendous amount of leverage and control in hands of a fairly small part
00:19:09.260of the British Columbia population. And it doesn't seem to be the NDP only, the
00:19:15.500federal government is involved. And of course, UNDRIP is a United Nations thing. So just how
00:19:22.140big does this picture get? Well, the interesting thing about UNDRIP, and I think one of the reasons
00:19:30.240that it was passed unanimously, is that there are varying perspectives on what it could mean.
00:19:35.560We spoke about the Talton Nation earlier, and I think that this is an interesting argument
00:19:39.900in defense of DRIPA and UNDRIP, which is the core tenant of DRIPA is self-determination and
00:19:46.860autonomy. And because we think of indigenous people sometimes being the stewards of the land,
00:19:52.280which again is kind of ludicrous, people tend to think of indigenous self-determination as the
00:19:57.800right to say no. We also typically associate indigenous people with stopping forestry projects
00:20:04.280or mining projects or a pipeline. But in a sense, I've heard the argument made, including from folks
00:20:10.720in the Talton Nation and others in the legislature, that DRIPA also gives these groups the right to
00:20:15.340say yes. And so that's an interesting perspective, right? I mean, it's ironic to me that David Eby
00:20:22.380has such a thorn in his side about the Alberta independence movement when he's one of the
00:20:27.540largest proponents of DRIPA, which holds self-determination and autonomy as its core value.
00:20:34.640It's ironic, to say the least. Alex, I hope you write about that one of these days. That's a
00:20:41.880beautiful irony, and very few people are aware of it, so it's okay to be for self-determination
00:20:48.860if you're indigenous, but if you're, you know, one of us, stay part of Canada.
00:20:56.680Well, and when you think about it, the right for an indigenous group to say yes with regards to industrial or private projects on their traditional territory could unlock significant economic potential for BC.
00:21:10.200So you can really look at DRIPA in two different lenses, right?
00:21:13.340I mean, if it's the right to say no, then everything can come to a screeching halt.
00:21:16.720But if it's the right to say yes, then it may open up doors to opportunities that we didn't previously have.
00:21:23.360Alex, I think you have a heart for this story.
00:21:25.820and it's only really just coming to light.