Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs says the NDP has a “colossal” leadership problem, and if it doesn’t move on from Premier David Eby, the party could be doomed for decades.
“I think the problem is Premier Eby,” he said at a Friday morning news conference in Vancouver held by Indigenous leaders opposed to a proposed suspension of parts of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA).
And Phillip says his wife, Joan, an NDP MLA, is not happy about DRIPA suspension either, calling into question whether Eby has the legislative support to get the changes made. With a one-vote majority, Eby’s NDP government needs every vote to ensure passage.
Phillip spoke alongside the First Nations Leadership Council, which is made up of members of the B.C. Assembly of First Nations, the First Nations Summit and the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs.
The groups held a joint news conference in Vancouver on Friday (April 10), slamming the B.C. NDP government’s DRIPA suspension plan, a move the council had called a “unilateral betrayal” on Thursday.
DRIPA is a 2019 B.C. law that formally commits the province to aligning its laws with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which affirms the right to self-determination for Indigenous peoples worldwide.
All the speakers at Friday’s news conference took Eby and his leadership to task – Attorney General Niki Sharma wasn’t spared either – but it was Phillip who had the strongest warning about the implications for the party’s future. He blamed the premier.
“I would suggest the NDP deal with their leadership issue or the party’s going to meet its demise as a whole,” he said. “And I believe in the event that that happens, it would take decades for them to recover from that absolute collapse in public confidence.”
Eby’s government has been working to amend DRIPA in response to recent court decisions, but it has been met with opposition from First Nations leaders along the way.
He offered a concession to First Nations leaders on April 2 after months of back-and-forth: a three-year suspension of parts of the law until an appeal of a related court case plays out.
Huy’wu’qw Shana Thomas said the last few months have been “classic political 101 strategy.”
“Anytime there’s a sniff of an election about to happen, the first thing people do is run to the media and denounce the inherent rights entitled First Nations people, and make all kinds of commitments that do not stand in the court of law, which is why we repeat the cycle,” she said.
“Delay, deny, denounce, and then we go to court, and we win, and then they’re forced to come to the table. So let’s just skip all of that, and let’s get to the business of reconciliation in the province.”
Thomas said First Nations people have seen this “over and over again” with premiers – from all political stripes, dating back to Glen Clark in the 1990s. The only former premier who didn’t get any flak in the news conference was John Horgan.
Eby has said he believes his caucus has the votes to pass a DRIPA suspension bill.
He also told reporters on Friday that every MLA in his caucus “votes the way that they think is best for the province of British Columbia,” while reaffirming that he plans to make it a confidence vote. This means an election would be triggered if the vote fails.
Grand Chief Phillip said that while he couldn’t speak on his wife Joan’s behalf (who represents the Vancouver-Strathcona riding, but has been away from the legislature recently due to a serious illness), he did comment that she is “absolutely heart sick about where this issue sits at the time.”
When asked about Joan’s stance, Eby said “everyone in our caucus is unified on a couple of key points,” noting there is a “wide diversity of voices” in the NDP caucus. He then shifted his focus to the B.C. Conservatives, highlighting that the party has lost six of its MLAs since the 2024 election.
Adam Olsen, a former B.C. Green MLA who was part of the news conference with the leadership council as a member of the Tsartlip First Nation, was asked whether or not he thinks an NDP MLA could break with the party on the vote.
“I would say that from my experience over seven years in the legislature, that never happened,” he said. “However, I think that what they’re facing right now, as has been very clearly articulated, is an existential crisis for their political movement, for their political party.”
What other MLAs are saying
B.C. Greens Rob Botterell, MLA for Saanich North and the Islands, said Friday’s news conference “really made it clear” that Eby and the B.C. NDP is at a crossroads.
“Do they want to be on the side of history where we’re back in court and stepping everything back 20 years, or do they want to be on the side of history where we’re actually going to do the work that’s not getting done working with First Nations?”
His and the Green Party’s view is that there is “really no need for the amendment of DRIPA.”
Botterell pointed to comments from Olsen that MLAs in the legislature “really need to think carefully about what they’re going to do, and particularly the ones that were there in 2019,” meaning the MLAs who helped bring in the act six years ago.
If the NDP is short of votes to pass the DRIPA changes — due to illness or members breaking ranks — the caucus could reach out to Independent MLAs to make up the numbers.
Independent Surrey South MLA Elenore Sturko told Black Press Media she hasn’t ruled out supporting the plan at this stage, but still favours repeal.
“I’m going to review the legislation at the first opportunity that I have,” she said. “I am, however, not keen to see the province frozen in uncertainty.”
Surko says she owes it to her constituents to make an educated decision.
“But knowing it is a pause and not a repeal is a move that I believe is freezing the province in uncertainty instead of having a clear decision and moving ahead based on that decision,” she said. “So I am approaching this issue with a great deal of concern.”
Sturko added that she has not had any discussions with the NDP about her vote at this point.
– With files from Mark Page