The Premier’s Promises Aren’t Enough to Save Bill 15

B.C. Premier David Eby has a Bill 15 problem. The new Infrastructure Projects Act, moving quickly through the legislature, would let the government eliminate the normal reviews for projects.

The government would be able to bypass environmental reviews, community consultation or First Nations’ consent for projects from mines to schools to pipelines.

If it decrees a project “provincially significant,” the government of the day will be able to push it through.

Eby says British Columbians, and Indigenous Peoples, should simply trust him. In an interview with the Globe and Mail, he offered personal commitments that no infrastructure projects will go ahead without consent, partnership and financial benefits for First Nations. He said the legislation will not be used for pipelines or LNG projects.

But none of that is written in the bill.

Intentions and promises aren’t binding. Protection of basic rights shouldn’t depend on a premier’s judgment. And laws should recognize that governments come and go.

The First Nations Leadership Council had been clear the provincial government failed to follow its obligations under the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act and the commitment to consult and co-operate with First Nations.

So, the province fails to consult First Nations on the legislation and now wants us to trust them on how it will be used? That's not how rights are protected; it's how they are erased.

The premier has something else going on here though. His argument positions the First Nations who partner on projects as the right form of Indigenous participation and those who challenge the premier and Bill 15 as obstacles to progress.

He is rolling out a political wedge, dressed up as reconciliation, designed to divide First Nations leaders into two camps, the economic partners and the political opponents.

First Nations need to uplift each other and not be divided by the antics of the Crown. It is right to participate in economic development projects, and it is right to confront elected leaders who centralize power and wish to remain unaccountable.

It appears that from Eby’s perspective, Indigenous consent is strategic, not based on legal rights. The premier talks about First Nations’ ownership in projects, stakeholder-ship, partnership, participation and consent as factors in deciding if they will be approved.

But there is no requirement for free, prior, informed consent or shared decision-making anywhere in Bill 15.

We should not stand by while the premier redefines First Nations’ consent as an investment play. Title, rights and the Declaration Act obligations are about legal standing, not shareholder status. Ownership is not consent, and investment does not replace Nation-to-Nation decision-making.

There is a growing chorus of criticism of Bill 15. The First Nations Leadership Council, including the BC Assembly of First Nations, the First Nations Summit and the Union of BC Indian Chiefs, the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council and W̱JOȽEȽP, the BC Green caucus, Stand.earth, Ecojustice and the Union of BC Municipalities all have made their concerns public.

There is an urgent economic need in most, if not all, First Nations communities in the province. The path forward cannot be a return to the unilateral decision-making of the past; it must be co-developed. First Nations negotiators are sitting at the tables in good faith, waiting for those discussions to begin.

Bill 15 needs to be amended, or withdrawn and restarted with Indigenous co-development.

If partnership is the goal, write it in the law. Make consent and co-ownership real, not optional. Do not ask First Nations people to trust what is not protected.

This is not about resisting the premier for the sake of political drama. There is a credible path forward that is rooted in legal integrity and the shared prosperity that Eby is promising First Nations.

Now the premier needs to show up and put his commitments in writing.