BC and Ontario Promote Legalized Lawlessness – First Peoples Law

May 28, 2025

In her 2022 book Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire, historian Caroline Elkins explains in grim detail how British colonizers around the world employed state-sanctioned violence to oppress local populations. She shows how they changed and manipulated their own laws to justify their violence and to dispossess Indigenous people. The term she coins to describe this policy is ‘legalized lawlessness’.

We’re seeing a similar policy of legalized lawlessness today in BC and Ontario with proposed legislation to reduce regulatory oversight, side-step environmental assessments, undermine the duty to consult and favour governments’ friends in industry (Bills 14 and 15 in BC and Bill 5 in Ontario).

BC and Ontario are creating the conditions to employ state-sanctioned violence against Indigenous land defenders. Once these new provincial laws are in place, BC and Ontario will expect Canadian courts and militarized police to enforce them based on the principle of ‘the rule of law’. This is modern-day colonization in action.

Read More: https://www.firstpeopleslaw.com/public-education/blog/bc-and-ontario-promote-legalized-lawlessness