Rock — BC Premier — hard place – Resource Works

April 9, 2026

Dilemma includes potential defeat of his government

That first headline sums up Eby’s challenging position between two predicaments as he seeks to change his government’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, the DRIPA Act.

The rock is BC’s adoption in 2019 of the DRIPA Act, and a court ruling last December that the act should apply to all BC laws “with immediate legal effect.”
The hard place: First Nations opposition to his proposal to suspend some provisions of the DRIPA act, and the potential defeat of his government on a non-confidence vote in the legislature.

The DRIPA Act aimed to ensure that BC laws were consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Those UN rights include the principle of free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous Peoples to natural-resource projects on their territories.