The B.C. government steered two controversial pieces of legislation across the finish line just before the clock ran out on the legislative session on Thursday, May 28.
The first, a bill to ratify a treaty with the K’omoks First Nation, was introduced alongside a treaty with Northern B.C.’s Kitselas First Nation.
Both ran into trouble after strong opposition from the neighbouring Nations.
The Wei Wai Kum First Nation says it has an overlapping claim to K’omoks territory, while the Lax Kw’alaams Band and the Nine Allied Tribes say they have claims to Kitselas land. In both cases, the neighbours say they were not properly consulted before the treaties were introduced in the B.C. legislature.
The Kitselas treaty did not make it through the legislative process and will be revisited in the fall. The K’omoks treaty passed with support from some members of the B.C. Conservative Party, which opted not to whip the vote on the treaty. It passed easily.
The freedom of information Bill did not have such an easy time, and required Speaker Raj Chouhan to break a tie vote.
Bill 9, the Freedom of Information and Privacy Protection Amendment Act, expands the authority of public officials to refuse information requests if complying would be too difficult or interfere with government operations. This would still require the consent of the privacy commissioner, an independent officer of the legislature.
Critics say the bill enables government secrecy by allowing officials too much leeway to reject information requests. It is also retroactive.
“So if you have a really difficult FOI request from a year or two ago and you just want to stop it in its tracks, well, apply to the commissioner and say it would unreasonably interfere with the delivery of the services in your ministry,” said Green Party MLA Rob Botterell, who helped craft the original freedom of information legislation in the 1990s and strongly opposes this bill.
“There’s no guardrails,” he added.