The BC NDP government has spent years championing reconciliation, free prior and informed consent, and the principle that Indigenous peoples must have meaningful input into decisions affecting their lands. This week, that framework is being turned against the government by the very organizations it funds and the very law it passed.

On Tuesday, representatives from the Union of BC Indian Chiefs (UBCIC), Wei Wai Kum First Nation, Nine Allied Tribes, and Lax Kw'alaams Band gathered in Victoria to deliver a stark message: if two NDP treaty bills proceed as drafted, they will go to court.

The Two Bills

The bills in question are Bill 20, the K'omoks Treaty Act, and Bill 21, the Kitselas Treaty Act — legislation ratifying treaties negotiated through BC's treaty process. On their face, these are meant to represent reconciliation milestones. In practice, neighbouring nations say they represent something very different.

Bill 20 — K'omoks Treaty

  • Wei Wai Kum First Nation says the K'ómoks Treaty claims 80% of its traditional territory
  • Wei Wai Kum Chief Christopher Roberts requests a 180-day pause
  • "Major impacts on our rights, our title and our territory for many generations"

Bill 21 — Kitselas Treaty

  • Lax Kw'alaams and Nine Allied Tribes say it would impact more than 90% of their territory
  • Hereditary leader Stan Dennis Jr. says he was involved in just one meeting
  • "That to me is not proper consultation"

These are not small grievances about process. These nations are saying that the NDP is ratifying treaties that hand over the majority of their traditional territories to other First Nations — without their consent, without adequate consultation, and without resolution of the overlapping claims.

The Consent Problem

The central irony here is almost too neat to be believed. DRIPA — the NDP's landmark Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act — enshrines the principle of free, prior, and informed consent as the governing framework for Indigenous-Crown relations in BC. The government has spent years defending DRIPA as the foundation of a new relationship with First Nations.

UBCIC vice-president Linda Innes made the contradiction explicit:

"The Crown continues its destructive and divisive processes of advancing nations through the various stages of the BC Treaty Commission process, despite neighbouring nations with shared territories not providing their consent on the boundaries being discussed."

— Linda Innes, UBCIC Vice-President, April 28, 2026

In other words: the government is violating the consent principle enshrined in its own signature legislation, in order to ratify treaties it is presenting as reconciliation achievements.

Lax Kw'alaams Mayor Gary Reece put it plainly: "We are told this is reconciliation. What we're seeing, and what we're experiencing is something very different. Reconciliation must be done the right way, and right now, it's not."

The Litigation Threat

UBCIC is not bluffing. The organization has the resources, the legal infrastructure, and the political motivation to pursue this in court. Linda Innes said directly that if the treaties proceed, there will likely be "direct action on the ground" and litigation.

This is the same UBCIC that helped architect DRIPA and has defended it against Conservative attempts at repeal. The fact that they are now threatening to sue the NDP government over treaty ratification — citing the same consent principles DRIPA was supposed to guarantee — is a significant escalation.

Stan Dennis Jr., hereditary leader of the Nine Allied Tribes, framed the human cost: "It's driving a permanent wedge between the First Nations." These are communities with deep family and cultural ties across territorial boundaries. The NDP's treaty process, rather than healing those relationships, is fracturing them.

The Government's Response: "Not Unusual"

BC Indigenous Relations Minister Spencer Chandra Herbert's response to Tuesday's press conference was notable for its complacency.

"I think that's the appropriate place on a neighbour-to-neighbour basis, nation-to-nation basis to resolve the issues of how they work together."

— Spencer Chandra Herbert, BC Indigenous Relations Minister

Chandra Herbert called the concerns "not unusual" and declined to commit on whether the bills would actually pass. He suggested the nations should work it out among themselves.

That response — essentially telling First Nations to sort out the NDP's treaty process on their own — is exactly the kind of Crown indifference that DRIPA was supposedly designed to end. The minister responsible for Indigenous relations is shrugging at the prospect of treaties that claim up to 90% of neighbouring nations' territories without their consent, and calling it normal.

The Pattern

What Tuesday's events reveal is a pattern that runs through the NDP's entire approach to Indigenous policy: the gap between the rhetoric of reconciliation and the reality of how decisions get made.

The NDP's Reconciliation Contradiction

  • Passed DRIPA enshrining Indigenous consent — then tried to suspend it when inconvenient
  • Champions "free, prior and informed consent" — now ratifying treaties without neighbouring nations' consent
  • Funds UBCIC — now faces litigation threats from UBCIC over its own legislation
  • Calls itself a reconciliation government — while driving "permanent wedges" between First Nations
  • Minister calls it "not unusual" — nations call it an existential threat to their territories

The NDP did not create the BC treaty process — it predates them by decades. But they own what happens under their watch. And what is happening right now is that two treaty bills, advancing under an NDP government that claims reconciliation as its defining legacy, are generating litigation threats from the province's most prominent Indigenous rights organization and cries of "this is not reconciliation" from affected nations.

The legislature will decide whether Bills 20 and 21 pass. But the political damage — to the NDP's credibility as a reconciliation government, and to the relationships between First Nations that these treaties are supposed to build — is already done.

When the government that wrote DRIPA is being sued under DRIPA's own principles by the organization that helped write it, something has gone badly wrong.