B.C. politics is in a race to the bottom
CALGARY—The British Columbia Conservative caucus is spinning out of control. In August, the provincial party lost seven MLAs, weeks into the tenure of newly elected party leader Kerry-Lynne Findlay, who chose to push racism into the mainstream of B.C. politics.
Reconciliation is a big political issue in B.C. since its lands are unceded territories of many First Nations. What this means is that First Nations people never ceded or legally signed away their lands to the Crown or Canada. Sec. 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, “recognizes and affirms the existing aboriginal and treaty rights of the aboriginal peoples of Canada.” The province does not hold title to 95 per cent of the land.
In 2019, then-premier John Horgan’s NDP government unanimously passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) “to align provincial laws with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples or UNDRIP.” According to APTN News, this made “B.C. the first jurisdiction to develop legislation in response to UNDRIP.”
The legislation “mandated that the government create an action plan to uphold Indigenous rights, foster reconciliation, and require consent-based decision-making agreements.” Now-Premier David Eby played a prominent role in drafting the legislation when he served as the attorney general. Six years later, he’s taken aim at it following a number of court decisions last year where the B.C. Supreme Court recognized Aboriginal title.
That aim turned into a political campaign to suspend DRIPA. It did not turn out well for him, so much so that he had to backtrack on the suspension after Indigenous communities cried foul—and rightly so. He even threatened a confidence vote; however, it turned out that his party was not on board and Eby pushed the issue off to the fall session.
A politician doing an about-face on the legislation he drafted years later because it’s politically inconvenient is one who everyone despises, and leaves room for misinformation and a backlash on vulnerable Indigenous populations.
It is important to note that at the beginning of the summer, Eby’s NDP government only had a one-seat majority in the legislature.
The B.C. Conservatives had used this consternation to their advantage. Former minister of aboriginal relations and reconciliation and ex-head of the B.C. Conservatives John Rustad had already laid out the party’s direction on Twitter in 2024: “The Eby NDP is undermining YOUR private property rights. The Haida deal means First Nations title could end up being applied to ALL private property in BC … This is a mess.” As per Capital Daily, “Rustad stoked fear and spread misinformation around the concept of Land Back, suggesting the province and/or private citizens would have to pay trillions of dollars in compensation whenever aboriginal titles to ownership were ‘found’ under current private property owners.” There you have it: B.C. Conservatives are fear mongering about Indigenous Peoples taking away your property rights through a woke court system, enflaming racist tropes of scary non-white people “stealing” your land and taking your property. This is patently false.
Unfortunately for the B.C. Conservatives, who may have had a winning strategy, they found the worst person to manage it. Findlay’s leadership has caused more centrist members to leave.
During the party’s leadership race earlier this year, she insinuated that rival Peter Milobar had a conflict of interest due to his wife being Indigenous. He left caucus on Aug. 14. In July, it was reported that she directed her caucus to replace the term “First Nations” with the derogatory term “Indian”—its usage pertaining to a time of residential schools, the ’60s Scoop, and more aggressive racism towards Indigenous people. Findlay and other caucus members have denied this report. Last week, Rosalyn Bird left caucus to sit as an Independent MLA citing the party’s lurch rightward in its political stances. Reann Gasper resigned her seat to make way for Findlay who lacks one. She was promptly hired as Findlay’s deputy chief of staff. If this hiring was an inducement for Gasper to resign her seat, that is a criminal offence. Teresa Wat quit caucus and now sits as an Independent after Findlay allegedly questioned Wat’s allegiance to Canada “calling her ‘CCP,’ a reference to the Chinese Communist Party,” as reported by The Canadian Press. And of course, there are numerous leaked recorded conversations making people look askance at Findlay and her staff.
The question that all Conservatives have to ask themselves is whether this descent into the septic tank of far-right, Trump-esque, racial, social grievance politics is the correct move to build support. As an op-ed in the Northern Beat concludes about Findlay’s reconstruction of the party, “she also bears some responsibility over framing how this debate has unfolded, and how it has unleashed an explosion of racist, inflammatory, and ignorant commentary on social media.” Leaning on racism in politics may launder short-term gains, but it is a long-term brand that is hard to shake off when the public turns against it.
Erica Ifill is host of the Bad+Bitchy podcast.
The Hill Times