FLETCHER: Heritage law the BC government’s next act of surrender

Tom Fletcher grew up in the Peace River region and has covered BC politics and business as a journalist since 1984.The BC government is preparing for its latest push to conform provincial law with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).It wasn’t clear six years ago what was meant by the provincial embrace of this non-binding UN declaration, but that is coming into focus now. It is the legal version of “land back,” the surrender of control on Crown land without a defence of the Crown’s long-established legal rights.So far we’ve seen an abandoned effort to impose Land Act changes to create a province-wide indigenous veto over development, and then a rebranded effort to do the same under the label of “land use planning.” This accomplishes the same thing on a regional basis, extending aboriginal title beyond what’s established in Canadian law, with the province picking winners in the case of the many overlapping land claims of formerly semi-nomadic tribes..MILLS: From underdog to undone: The trouble with John Rustad’s leadership.Prepared in closed-door meetings, the land use plans declare vast areas of claimed traditional territories off limits to industrial activity, designating sacred sites. For similar reasons, provincial parks have been closed to all but indigenous people for increasing periods of time.Next to get the UNDRIP treatment is BC’s Heritage Conservation Act. A final round of consultations was about to wrap up on October 1 as the BC NDP government prepares to introduce sweeping changes in the legislature. Backlash from local governments this week prompted the forests minister to extend the consultation period until mid-November.Reports from earlier rounds of consultation give a sense of where this is going..The government’s Heritage Conservation Act Transformation Project home page sets the tone. There is a generalized land acknowledgment that BC is “grateful to carry out our work on these lands,” and a solemn declaration of the province’s “commitment to anti-racism.”Consultation is divided into two groups: First Nations and “stakeholders.” A summary of First Nations input reasserts that many members identify racism as a key obstacle to protecting indigenous heritage. Typically, no examples or evidence of this are provided.The government’s consultation page notes that “the proposed changes could enhance definitions to reflect a broader range of values such as intangible heritage, oral histories, cultural landscapes, language, place names, spiritual sites, and cultural traditions.”.EDITORIAL: LGB breaking free from the rainbow alphabet soup.As with access to provincial parks, this sets a condition where spiritual practices and ceremonies could be asserted to block development in areas designated by indigenous people. The province’s commitment to “anti-racism” suggests that you shouldn’t ask too many questions about these spiritual practices and ceremonies because that would be questioning traditional indigenous knowledge.As we have seen with land use restrictions already revealed in the Sunshine Coast, Squamish, and northwestern BC, indigenous groups may choose not to disclose the exact location of spiritually significant sites..The Heritage Conservation Act already requires archaeological studies to be paid for by proponents of projects if an indigenous cultural site is claimed. The changes would introduce the notion of “intangible heritage,” once again moving towards a veto over land use without the need to produce evidence of occupation or use of the site in question.The government says its changes to heritage legislation are to streamline it for faster permitting, particularly in the aftermath of a natural disaster. An example of this issue is the village of Lytton, which mostly burned down in 2021, the third such catastrophic fire to hit the Fraser Canyon community in recorded history..HILTON-O’BRIEN: Is public education dying?.Reconstruction has dragged on, partly due to a requirement for property owners to conduct archaeological studies costing tens of thousands of dollars before building. Studies must be conducted by archaeologists approved by the local indigenous leadership.BC is a couple of years ahead of the federal government, which hastily passed its own version of the UNDRIP declaration during the moral panic over unproven secret grave claims at Kamloops. One change seen since then is that politicians no longer try to pretend that “free, prior, and informed consent” does not amount to a veto. Tom Fletcher grew up in the Peace River region and has covered BC politics and business as a journalist since 1984. He lives in Victoria.tomfletcherbc@gmail.comX: @tomfletcherbc

FLETCHER: Heritage law the BC government’s next act of surrender

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