Thoughts on BC Politics and More

The Association for Mineral Exploration (AME) is raising concerns about BC’s Heritage Conservation Act Transformation Project.  The purpose of the project is to update the Heritage Conservation Act (HCA) to ensure it is consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and improve how the HCA is implemented in a way that benefits all people in BC.   According to the provincial government, The Heritage Conservation Act (HCA) encourages and enables the protection and conservation of sites with historical, cultural and/or archaeological value in BC. These sites hold physical evidence of how and where people lived CLICK HERE for the full story

Green Party MLA, and Interim Leader, Adam Olsen This has been an incredibly difficult chapter for British Columbia – and for me personally as an Indigenous Member of the Legislative Assembly. From the exhilaration of being the first jurisdiction in Canada to pass the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into legislation, to the escalating situation in Wet’suwet’en territory, our path to reconciliation has been - and will continue to be - fraught with challenges. As I said when the Declaration received Royal Assent, none of this work is easy or simple. It will not be solved overnight. The tragic and dysfunctional relationship between Crown governments and Indigenous people in British Columbia is legally complex and has been evolving for more than 150 years. No aspect of this current breakdown in relations, in British Columbia, should be a surprise to the Crown governments. It is the legacy of Canada’s historic and ongoing colonialism. ...

Green Party interim leader Adam Olsen The following is the text of a media release from the BC Green Party: BC Green Party interim leader MLA Adam Olsen has been invited by the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs to visit their camps in northern B.C. this weekend. “ As the new interim leader of the B.C. Green Party, I believe it is important to be engaged on these issues, and I am honoured to be invited by the hereditary chiefs into their territory ,” said Olsen, MLA for Saanich-North and the Islands and a member of Tsartlip First Nation. “ My goal is to encourage a peaceful process moving forward. I have also reached out to meet with the local RCMP detachment ”. “ As a member of a party with nonviolence as a foundational principle, it has been difficult to read the reports coming out of this dispute. Lethal force should never be a premeditated solution when dealing with peaceful protesters; that is not the path forward for our province or our country ....

It was a remarkable week in the Legislature in Victoria . On Tuesday, just two days before the fall session adjourned for the decade, all Members of the British Columbia Assembly voted in favour of Bill 41, The Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). The Bill was introduced with much ceremony, and celebration, on October 24th. Following second reading speeches, a two-week break for Thanksgiving and Remembrance Day, and extensive scrutiny at committee stage, Lt. Governor Janet Austin gave the Act Royal Assent with a simple nod on Thursday morning. The occasion marks the end of my two-year effort to ensure the government followed through on the commitment they made to British Columbians during the 2017 election, and to the BC Greens in our Confidence and Supply Agreement, to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. It marks the beginning of the next effort With the Act receiving support from all Members,...