After narrowly winning a provincial election in which his party campaigned as defenders of Indigenous peoples, Premier David Eby’s NDP has quickly broken its solemn commitments to uphold the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Instead, the NDP is following the same natural resource extraction and export agenda promoted by the new federal Liberal government, and the “drill, baby, drill” strategy of the Trump administration in the USA.
This turn of events follows the historic context of colonial and capitalist theft of Indigenous lands and waters across Turtle Island and the entire western hemisphere for over five hundred years. In so-called British Columbia, the takeover of traditional, unceded Indigenous territories since the late 1700s has brought enormous profits to private capitalist interests, while the original owners of these lands and waters continuously resisted genocide and exploitation. Now, the limited progress achieved through decades of legal and political struggles to protect the rights of Indigenous peoples is being shredded, as governments in BC and across Canada scramble to remove environmental regulations which place some limits on the greed of resource sector monopolies.
Earlier this year, the NDP adopted Bill 7, giving the cabinet power to override laws, regulations, inter-provincial trade barriers, and provincial authorities, allegedly to “meet the Trump tariff threat.” The legislation was opposed by the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, First Nations Leadership Council, and First Nations Summit, by the two Green Party MLAs, and by the Communist Party of BC.
On May 28, the NDP majority in the Legislature adopted Bills 14 (Renewable Energy Projects (Streamlined Permitting Act) and Bill 15, Infrastructure Projects Act, each by a vote of 47-46, with the Speaker casting tie-breaking votes.
These actions ignore the 93 Recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the Calls to Justice by the Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, the BC Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) Action Plan, and the In Plain Sight Report exposing systemic racism in B.C. healthcare, all of which helped to expose the genocidal legacy of colonialism and capitalism.
Instead of taking urgent measures to protect the working class and Indigenous peoples in BC, such as rolling back the enormous tax breaks to upper-income earners and corporations and using those funds for low-income housing, child care, education and social programs, the Eby government has backed the agenda of resource corporations to seize on the tariff war as an opportunity to maximize private profits.
At the federal level, the Liberal government of Mark Carney has doubled down on its own “fast-tracking” strategy. Mocking their own promises to consult with Indigenous peoples, the Liberals have excluded First Nations from crucial decision-making processes that affect their lands, rights, and resources, such as Bill C-5, the "Building Canada Act, which grants the federal Cabinet sweeping powers to fast-track major development projects deemed to be in the “national interest.”
As stated by Chief Don Tom, Union of BC Indian Chiefs Vice-President. “Canada cannot build economic recovery on the backs of Indigenous Nations without our consent, our participation, and our laws being respected…. Both the Province of B.C. and Canada have now broken their UN Declaration Laws. We will not be legislated to; we will uphold our Title and Rights recognized under section 35 of the Constitution. We are the First Peoples of the Land; we are not Canada’s Indians.”
Speaking at the August 2 meeting of the Communist Party of BC’s Provincial Committee, party leader Robert Crooks stated the unwavering solidarity of the Communist Party with Indigenous peoples, who are mobilizing against the corporate strategy to fast-track energy and resource extraction projects at the expense of the environment and the interests of Indigenous peoples and the working class.
“The NDP government of Premier Eby has betrayed years of promises to defend the rights of Indigenous peoples,” Crooks said. “This does not surprise the Communist Party – during last fall’s provincial election our candidates warned voters that the NDP fundamentally supports the agenda of capitalist resource extraction and exports. We urge the labour movement and working people in British Columbia to reject the false argument that this corporate agenda is the only way to protect the interests of the working class. BC and all of Canada need an economic strategy based on putting the needs of the working class and the environment first, not the profits of resource industries.”