Will the Real David Eby Please Stand Up?

Reading comments from Premier David Eby and articles on his decision to take no action on the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA, for at least six months made me wonder — what kind of a person/leader is he?

Eby said it took a tap on the shoulder from Attorney General Niki Sharma in the last hours before tabling amendments to DRIPA to make him see he was about to make a huge mistake. That it would ruin the government’s relationship with First Nations people.

Excuse me? He was listening to Sharma? Don’t get me wrong as I have greatest respect for the attorney general.

But after Eby had listened to the Chiefs and First Nations leaders for over three hours and had gotten hundreds of letters stating that we did not want amendments? Chiefs repeatedly stating that it would destroy the relationship we had. I had told him in the second meeting that I had lost confidence in him and I had felt the earth rock when he told us amending DRIPA was non-negotiable. So why bother to meet with us?

Over and over and over again the Chiefs told him that he was not working with us in a good way and certainly not consulting and collaborating in a way that would lead to free, prior and informed consent as required by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples before legislation was passed.

We told him we wanted a collaborative process to find solutions. I know on behalf of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council I proposed a table where we could look at options and find solutions to B.C.’s concerns. A lot of Chiefs made similar recommendations and others said we want to work together on this and wanted more time with the premier to work this out. But he was dead set on amending DRIPA.

Did he not listen to us? Hear us? Did he not think our positions and opinions and recommendations were important enough to listen to?

But he would listen to his attorney general say the same things.

To me that says a lot about who he thinks is important and shows disrespect to all the time the Chiefs and leaders devoted to this issue over the past month. We took time to attend quickly called meetings and to respond to two of his proposals within a few days.

We felt it important to weigh in and we expected him to take us seriously and not just say I am going ahead with the amendments.

Eby did this without even asking for our response to his last proposal to suspend parts of DRIPA and the Interpretation Act for up to three years. We wrote letters anyway and told him again we did not agree. And then we heard he was going to table the amendments without our agreement. That he could not say that the First Nations Leadership Council’s open letter to MLAs and the fact that he wouldn’t get a vote through the legislature on the amendments also played a role also speaks volumes to who he is.

I shook my head when I read Vaughn Palmer’s Vancouver Sun article about how First Nations leaders threatened Eby.

Threatened? Telling the premier what we would need to do to protect our rights, and in particular our human rights, was a threat? Suggesting the need to go to court — the right of everyone in this province — was a threat? Lobbying every MLA or holding protests was a threat?

I think it was waking up the premier to our reality. Telling him about things we may have to do to protect our rights was telling him things he needed to think about if he proceeded.

We have been here before. We have had to fight for our rights at every turn. We had hoped with DRIPA we had set a new path with less conflict and reconciliation in sight.

Thinking of all these things made me think, “Would the real David Eby stand up?”

Is he really someone who needed one person to tell him what to do? Is he a person who would feel threatened when there was no threat? Or a person who was willing to risk everything he had built with First Nations without putting more time and energy into finding solutions?

What I would wish for in a premier is for a leader who would be a visionary, who could see what was needed to build a better B.C. for all people. Someone who could continue to build the partnership with First Nations for the benefit of all British Columbians. Someone who could take the foundation of DRIPA as a reconciliation framework and do great things with First Nations. Someone who could take Indigenous rights and title to a level that is recognized worldwide.

Can Eby be that kind of leader? If his performance over the past few months is any indication then I don’t think he can. And that is a sad reflection on his leadership.

Eby could have stood up in front of the Chiefs or reporters or in the legislature and said, “I have listened carefully to the Chiefs and leaders of this province and know we can work together to find solutions to B.C.’s concerns over DRIPA.”

Now that would be a leader I could respect.