Thoughts on BC Politics and More

The BC government needs clarity from the Supreme Court of Canada on a landmark mineral rights claim, Premier David Eby says. But the lawyer representing the challenger says that they would have preferred the province respect the lower court's decision. Eby said Thursday it is very good news that the court will hear its appeal of a ruling that found the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the provincial mineral claims regime are "inconsistent." The BC Court of Appeal ruled in December that the provincial Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA, should be "properly interpreted" to incorporate the UN declaration into the laws of B.C. with immediate legal effect. That ruling set off the appeal from the province amid concerns that it could cause economic uncertainty ... CLICK HERE for the full story 

The Gitxaala First Nation is appealing a recent BC Supreme Court decision that found, among other things, that the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) has no force in law in B.C. The Gitxaala also want the Court of Appeal to do what the BC Supreme Court refused to do – quash several mineral claims in their traditional territories ... CLICK HERE for the full story

Tracy Redies, MLA for Surrey-White Rock The last few days have been extremely troubling ... and don’t bode well for our Province ... and our country. CN Rail, which moves $250 billion in goods along its railway, shut down its Eastern tracks because the police and governments were not enforcing the law. VIA Rail has canceled its trains across the country. The West Coast express and several key thoroughfares in the Lower Mainland and elsewhere were blockaded with tens of thousands of commuters impacted. Delta port closed down. The parliament buildings in Victoria were almost impenetrable at one point this week with employees, MLAs and officers spat on, pushed, and bullied all the time having obscenities yelled at them just for trying to go to work. A constituency office, open to do work for the community, occupied by 50 or more protesters, saying ‘ This is war’ . A lone constituency assistant barricaded herself in the bathroom of the constituency o...

Our “leaders” are really followers -- they are not interested in acting in the best interests of Canada and her people. Four of the six party leaders are in favour of writing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) into Canadian law. That will add to the complexity of reconciliation. If we were to adopt the UN Declaration (promulgated in 2007) it should be based on replacing all existing treaties. A serious impediment to reconciliation is the failure to reach an agreement on what “treaty rights” are, and are not. The government and indigenous people have different definitions and there is “no meeting of minds”. Until there is, there can be no reconciliation. Adding another set of “rights” created by an unelected body with no responsibility for the outcome of imposing the declaration on Canada will result in problems our leaders are not considering. There has been no serious discussion or debate on the merits of adopting UNDRIP...

Prologue Heads up. This post is dense.   It might be one of my densest yet. It takes me back to high school when I was working over a few "isms" like Marxism, capitalism and anarchism. Back to the days when the school administrators called to plead with my mother to get me to stop holding "anarchy sessions" in the smoking pit. I was the kid who stayed up well past my bedtime repeatedly watching a VHS copy of Noam Chomsky's  Manufacturing Consent . In some ways this post is a tribute to a 25-year personal struggle with the cultural and economic forces driving our decisions. Now I have the responsibility as an elected official, the opportunity to make change and to actively work to create the more just and compassionate society we have long dreamed of.   Re-deal Last week, I attended the town hall discussion in Victoria for The Pact for a Green New Deal . The Fernwood Community Centre was full, people were lining the walls and...

Premier John Horgan has released the following statement in honour of the 11th anniversary of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP): Eleven years ago, UNDRIP was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly to protect and uphold the inherent rights and human rights of Indigenous peoples around the globe. One of our first commitments as government was to work to implement UNDRIP, the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the Tsilhqot’in Supreme Court decision. The road is long, but we have made reconciliation a cross-government priority and are taking important steps forward, in partnership with Indigenous peoples. Government after government has made empty promises to First Nations and all Indigenous peoples, and made unilateral decisions about their communities and land. Systemic and institutional racism has left a legacy of trauma and inequality that affects the lives of Indigenous peop...