09/18/2026
This week municipal leaders from across the province gathered in Vancouver. DRIPA being positive law in BC raises many questions for how municipalities are going to operate.
For example: How are cities in going to issue permits going forward, if consent is required by all the First Nations that have land claims, regardless of Aboriginal title or treaty?
As lawyer Geoffrey Moyse, K.C. explains in the National Post:
“ 'Land back' is being promoted through two interconnected UNDRIP principles in British Columbia: the alleged Indigenous ownership of all lands and resources throughout often enormous territories; and the supposed legal authority to decide what those lands and resources can be used for, and who is to retain the revenue that they generate.
Supplementing the latter is the concept of “free and informed consent” that is set out in Article 32(2) of UNDRIP, which obliges governments to obtain Indigenous buy-in before any development takes place on their claimed traditional territories.
This promotes Aboriginal territorial control over democratic government decision-making on large swaths of Crown land and acts as an impediment to economic development."
Do you think the free, prior, and informed consent of bands should be a requirement for municipal projects to get permits?
