Good morning.

The B.C. legislature begins a new sitting this week. One of the most hotly debated subjects is expected to be how the NDP government will respond to two court rulings that have expanded Indigenous rights in ways that have alarmed Premier David Eby.

Public debate in the legislature will be a welcome departure. Eby’s government has demonstrated a penchant for dealing with these issues quietly, a preference that repeatedly has blown up in its face over the past year.

On Monday, the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs issued a news release calling on the government to abandon its plans to amend the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act. Eby has said changes are needed after a court ruling in December found the province’s mineral claims regime is "inconsistent“ with the requirements of DRIPA.

The court’s judgment established a new benchmark for the implementation of the declaration, which was passed unanimously by the B.C. legislature in 2019, creating a binding obligation on government to abide by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, or UNDRIP.

Eby said at the time the amendments are needed to ensure government – not the courts – sets the pace of bringing all of B.C.’s laws into alignment with the declaration. The amendments are expected to be introduced during this legislative session.

“Reconciliation is a two-way street,” he said in a statement last week.

According to the UBCIC, the province invited First Nations to join in a fast-tracked consultation on the changes. But they have to sign a non-disclosure agreement first.

The provincial government also relied on NDAs when it undertook consultations to overhaul the Heritage Conservation Act, according to media reports. The resulting proposed amendments were aimed at giving First Nations more say in decisions about what needs to be protected and how, and at expanding the definition of heritage by including sites that don’t have any artifacts but have been identified as sacred in songs, stories or legends of First Nations.

But the changes caused a furor among municipal politicians who said that after the government spent months in consultations with Indigenous groups, they were brought in only at the end stages, despite the changes having significant impact on their jurisdictions.

In January, the B.C. government said it was shelving the changes.

Last June, The Globe’s Justine Hunter reported that the B.C. government had quietly ceded control of a large portion of a provincial park off the west coast of Vancouver Island in response to a court ruling on an Indigenous land claim. Public access to parts of Nuchatlitz Park is no longer assured after the B.C. Supreme Court declared last year that the Nuchatlaht had proven Aboriginal title to some of it.

But the remnants of the park are not marked and there was no public announcement that the land was no longer available to the kayakers and recreational boaters who treasured it. After Justine asked, the province said it is up to visitors to ensure they are not trespassing.

In January, 2024, the government, on its web page, offered British Columbians the chance to comment on proposed changes to the Land Act. The changes would have allowed joint decision-making with Indigenous communities about public land, which would have affected some 40,000 tenure holders who use that land for infrastructure, forestry, building transmission towers and other operations.

Anyone who happened to find the invitation for feedback on the government’s website had just 12 weeks to participate. Indigenous groups had been consulted much earlier, but participants were required to sign NDAs.

The government shelved those changes, too, after a public outcry.

Later this week, the government will be in court for another case that turns, in part, on a lack of consultation.

The B.C. government is supporting Montrose Properties as it argues to reopen the massive Cowichan case. In her Aug. 7 decision, Justice Barbara Young concluded that the Cowichan have Aboriginal title to roughly 800 acres in Richmond, including some owned by Montrose.

The property company is arguing it should have been notified before proceedings began in 2019 so it could intervene. In its notice of application, Montrose points out that lawyers representing the government of Canada had asked the court to issue formal notice to private property owners that their interests could be affected by the case – but the court dismissed that pretrial application.

The judge concluded the governments of Canada and British Columbia could notify the owners if they chose to do so. Neither did.

Eby said last week the provincial government worried at the time that it would face expensive liability if it had undertaken the notification on its own and missed someone.

This is the weekly British Columbia newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.