The Association for Mineral Exploration (AME) is raising concerns about B.C.’s Heritage Conservation Act Transformation Project.
The purpose of the project is to update the Heritage Conservation Act (HCA) to ensure it is consistent with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and improve how the HCA is implemented in a way that benefits all people in B.C.
According to the provincial government, The Heritage Conservation Act (HCA) encourages and enables the protection and conservation of sites with historical, cultural and/or archaeological value in B.C. These sites hold physical evidence of how and where people lived.
Many of these sites in B.C. are culturally sensitive, contain ancestral remains, and have important sacred and spiritual value to First Nations in B.C. Altering these protected sites without a permit is prohibited under the Act.
Significant changes have not been made to the HCA since 1996.
“It also impacts forestry. It impacts oil and gas. It kind of impacts everyone, and the changes that government has put forward are quite problematic,” said Jack Middleton, AME vice president of policy and advocacy.
Middleton talked to Black Press Media while touring the Northwest to raise awareness of the project.
He explained that most of their members were unaware of the project and the government has bumped the consultation period from Oct. 1 to mid-November.
One of the project’s aims is to strengthen the role of First Nations in decision-making about their own heritage and ancestors, in alignment with the Declaration Act .
“It’s looking to seek consent from First Nations to get an archeology permit, which they’re framing as speeding up the process, but we feel will ultimately slow the process down without a serious explanation of how it will speed things up,” Middleton said.
”There’s also a real lack of science. They’re looking to include intangible cultural heritage in that, so oral traditions and stories and things like that, which we were looking for physical archaeological evidence in an archaeological permit.
“And then they’re looking to provide Nations with the ability to enforce archaeology permits. And our stance is that we think that should rest with the government. The government should be the group that enforces laws in the country, in the province.”
Middleton also said there is concern about capacity and whether Indigenous groups have the people and the knowledge to take on the extra role.
Feedback from First Nations, local governments, stakeholders, and the public to help the Province develop new legislation will be accepted until 4 p.m. on Nov. 14.