Elections BC approves Conservative MLA’s petition to repeal DRIPA

PENTICTON — Elections BC has given in-principle approval to a citizen initiative petition that would repeal British Columbia’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, the 2019 law that writes the United Nations declaration into provincial statute.The proponent is Langley-Abbotsford Conservative MLA Harman Bhangu, the official opposition’s transportation critic. Chief Electoral Officer Shipra Verma found the proposal sits within the legislature’s jurisdiction and that Bhangu’s two-sentence draft repeal bill is “clear and unambiguous.”.The petition will be issued to Bhangu on Monday, October 26. He then has 90 days. Signature sheets are due Monday, January 25, 2027. To succeed, canvassers must collect valid signatures from 10% of registered voters in each of the 93 electoral districts — not 10% provincewide, and not a majority in most ridings. A miss in a single district kills the petition..Opponents then have 30 days to register — in this case Monday, September 28. Sixty days after approval the petition is issued and the clock starts. Volunteers, not paid hunters, collect signatures. Each sheet is riding-specific. A signer must have been on the voters list on the issue date, give a residential address, and be witnessed by a registered canvasser.British Columbia had 3,609,288 registered voters at the close of the October 19, 2024 general election. The 10% in every riding threshold is why almost every initiative dies on the paper. Elections BC has approved 14 petitions since 1995 and only one cleared verification: Bill Vander Zalm’s 2010 drive to kill the harmonized sales tax. His campaign turned in 713,883 raw signatures. Elections BC counted 557,383 as valid..Even that is only the middle of the process. A verified petition then goes to the legislature’s Select Standing Committee on Legislative Initiatives. The committee must meet within 30 days and, within 90 days of that first meeting, do one of two things. It can table a report recommending that the draft bill be introduced, or it can send the petition to the chief electoral officer for an initiative vote.An initiative vote is not a referendum. Referendums are called by government under the Referendum Act and usually pass on a simple majority of ballots cast. An initiative vote runs on a fixed calendar — the last Saturday of September every third year. The next window after Bhangu’s January deadline would be September 2029. To win, more than 50% of all registered voters in the province must vote yes, and more than 50% of all registered voters in each of at least two-thirds of the ridings must vote yes. That is of the entire list, not of the people who show up. A 2024-style turnout of 58% could not meet the test even if every person who voted said yes.And still, a win still does not enact the bill. The statute only forces the government to introduce it at the earliest practicable opportunity. The House can still amend it, delay it or defeat it..DRIPA passed unanimously in November 2019. It requires the government to take all measures necessary to make provincial laws consistent with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and creates a path for agreements that share statutory decision-making with indigenous governing bodiesThe law sat in the background until December 2025, when the BC Court of Appeal held that DRIPA has real legal force and that the province’s mineral-claims regime was inconsistent with it. Premier David Eby said the ruling created “serious legal liabilities.” In April he floated a pause or amendments, then reversed after First Nations leadership and parts of his own caucus pushed back. The NDP instead promised a joint working group with the First Nations Leadership Council ahead of the fall sitting..Conservative MLAs have treated repeal as a first-order demand since the Court of Appeal decision. Peace River North MLA Jordan Kealy’s private member’s repeal bill was voted down after first reading in November 2025. Interim leader Trevor Halford wrote Eby that month asking him to recall the House solely to scrap DRIPA and the companion Interpretation Act amendment. Every remaining candidate in the 2026 Conservative leadership contest said they would repeal the act.A May Angus Reid Institute poll found 47% of British Columbians backed that position, including 26% of those who voted NDP in 2024. Thirty-three percent were opposed and 21% were unsure.Bhangu has been among the loudest Conservative voices on the file. In a December 2025 post he called DRIPA an imported framework British Columbians never consented to, argued it pressures governments toward consent and veto, and said Section 35 of the Constitution already protects aboriginal and treaty rights at a higher legal level than ordinary property rights..First Nations organizations have rejected repeal and fought even modest amendments. The First Nations Leadership Council has called DRIPA human-rights legislation that should not be subject to cabinet whim, and more than 100 First Nations urged Eby earlier this year to uphold the act.The draft bill itself is short. Elections BC says it would repeal the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act and come into force on royal assent. The application, the bill and Verma’s reasons for approving it are posted for inspection at elections.bc.ca/initiative.

Elections BC approves Conservative MLA’s petition to repeal DRIPA

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