British Columbia’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) is encroaching on the democratic rights of British Columbians.
DRIPA, as developed by the provincial NDP government and defended by the First Nations Leadership Council (FNLC), has gone beyond the process of consultation required under Canadian law. Now, it has become a vessel for co-governance between First Nations and the provincial government.
Childcare authorities were called on Lara Yates, a mother-of-four, after she dared to heckle a land acknowledgement at a school in British Columbia, says her lawyer.
Land acknowledgements are tedious political theatre and pompous virtue signalling and weaponizing social services to persecute those who refuse to adhere to this zealotry smacks of the Inquisition.
In August 2025, after one of the longest trials in Canadian history, Justice Barbara Young of the British Columbia Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling declaring that the Cowichan Tribes hold “Aboriginal title” to 800 acres of land in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond.
The 800 acres includes government land and 150 “fee simple” properties, the most common form of residential land ownership in Canada. In other words, people’s homes and businesses.
First Nations sources say British Columbia Premier David Eby’s government will introduce legislation to suspend parts of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act on Monday.
Independent First Nations sources tell The Canadian Press that the bill that has been vehemently opposed by many Indigenous leaders will seek to suspend the core elements of DRIPA for one year.
Eby has said a recent court decision on B.C.’s mineral claims regime that cited DRIPA puts the province at serious litigation risk.
UPDATE – Eby Caved – Premier David Eby backs down again on B.C. Indigenous law
h/t Stevie
The University of British Columbia said it “does not condone” recent comments by a First Nations leader but did not indicate if it would take any action after the guest speaker at one of its events expressed her desire to see her political opponent get beaten and raped.
UBC’s response comes after Charlene Belleau, an elder in the Esk’etemc First Nation in B.C., appeared at a virtual event earlier this week hosted by Derek Thompson, the university’s Indigenous initiatives advisor. During the virtual talk, Belleau recalled comments she made toward Frances Widdowson, an academic focused on economics and Indigenous policy, when she had approached Widdowson in person at a campus event in late 2025.
While censorship is often the main focus of discussions about free speech, there’s a related phenomenon that can do just as much damage to a free society. Not by preventing people from saying things they believe in, but by forcing them to say things they do not.
Compelled speech requires people to use certain words or phrases, or to partake in upholding certain ideological beliefs. It is just as dangerous to free expression as overt censorship.
NDP MP Leah Gazan is standing by her use of the initialism MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+ and denouncing those who are mocking her online for using the term.
A clip of the Winnipeg Centre MP saying “the ongoing genocide of MMIWG2SLGBTQQIA+” during a news conference in Ottawa went viral this week and sparked backlash, including insults from Elon Musk and U.S. Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.
“Bigots are bigots,” Gazan told CBC News in response.
The Moron is likely a Pretendian
On Thursday, federal Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre called on the Liberal government to take action to protect private property rights in B.C. and across Canada. He was absolutely right to do so.
Poilievre explained that Canadians need the federal government, to “make it clear that the federal government’s position is that fee-simple property takes priority over all of the other claims.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is calling for an emergency parliamentary committee to study all possible steps to protect private land ownership – known as fee simple title – in Canada.
His is the latest in a long list of voices expressing concern about the Cowichan decision, a B.C. Supreme Court ruling from August, 2025, that declared Aboriginal title is a senior interest above fee simple.
Mr. Poilievre spoke to reporters Thursday at a dusty crossroads between farmers’ fields in Richmond, B.C., the city where the courts have recognized that the Cowichan Tribes have Aboriginal title to about 300 hectares of developed land.
Two years after it launched, Canada’s first fully Indigenous-owned department store has closed its doors, leaving the owner $800,000 in debt, thanks in part to the denial of a City of Toronto grant.
The problem began when Chelsee-Marie Pettit, the founder of Aaniin, applied for a city grant to showcase the work of Indigenous artists at her Eaton Centre pop-up.
Pettit says she thought the city initially approved her application, prompting her to extend the lease on her store. But then an anonymous Indigenous jury, which has the final say in the grant’s approval, denied her funding, creating an added layer of financial burdens.
A murky story.
An Indigenous B.C. man who shot his sleeping wife in the head after a 17-hour drinking binge has been sentenced to under seven years for her death.
The sentence is far below the Crown prosecutor’s request for 16 years and is partially the result of the judge finding the defendant’s Indigenous heritage a significant mitigating factor.
A group that’s been searching for missing children and unmarked graves at the former McIntosh Indian Residential School in northwestern Ontario says it’s been denied federal funding to continue its work.
The search is being led by the Wiikwogaming Tiinahtiisiiwin project team, an initiative started by members of Grassy Narrows First Nation. The Ojibwe community is also known as Asubpeeschoseewagong Netum Anishinabek.
In case you develop dizziness, nausea, tics and or hives at this ongoing fake graves scam the CBC has made help available…
WARNING: This story contains references to the Indian residential school system. Resources can be found at the bottom of this story.
A First Nation in Alberta has said that a separatist push for the province to secede from Canada is “consummately irresponsible and dishonourable” and should be shut down, arguing in court that a proposed referendum would violate their treaty rights.
A minority of residents of the oil-rich province have long argued that the province’s woes are due to the structure of payments to the federal government and a perceived inability to get their vast fossil fuel reserves to market.
In recent months, separatists have seized on the sentiment and collected nearly 180,000 signatures to request a referendum. But the Sturgeon Lake Cree Nation, near Edmonton, has asked a court to halt the campaign.
RCMP say six of their vehicles that were left at the Potlotek First Nation Thursday after officers left the scene on foot suffered damage that includes broken windows, flat tires, “urine-soaked interior surfaces” and dents.
In a news release issued Friday, RCMP said seven vehicles, including the six damaged ones, were removed from the Cape Breton community this morning. Some vehicles even had their tires removed, police said.
The British Columbia government wants to suspend portions of its groundbreaking legislation enacting the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Premier David Eby says.
In talks with Indigenous leaders, the Premier said the government has proposed halting for three years portions of the legislation that would commit the province to bringing all its laws into alignment with UNDRIP.
