Image Credit: CFJC Today / Kent Simmonds

By Jill Sperling

UNDRIP

Skeetchestn chief hopes B.C.’s adoption of UNDRIP will set example for Canada

Oct 28, 2019 | 8:21 AM

KAMLOOPS — The Chief of the Skeetchestn Indian Band is calling B.C.’s adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Right of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), “courageously historic.”

Legislation to implement UNDRIP was introduced in the Legislature last Thursday, making B.C. the first province to take this step.

Skeetchestn Chief Ron Ignace says the move sets the tone for the rest of Canada to move towards reconciliation. He calls the adoption of UNDRIP long overdue.

“It talks about our right to our own languages, our own laws, recognition, respect for our political organizations, to have our own institutions — basically what our chiefs in 1910 were calling for,” Ignace said. “It’s what I see as the floor for entering into those types of nation-to-nation relations with Canada.”

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Ignace is concerned with complaints he’s heard of over the declaration’s requirement to obtain consent from First Nations groups for any projects that affect their land.

He says any new developments should improve quality of life and not simply be about making money.

“To me, it is a democratic right to self-determination to say yes or no should a development be harmful to the environment, be harmful to our people, be harmful to everyone — not only just Indigenous peoples,” Ignace said. “We should have the right to be able to say no to that and find a better way to move forward for economic development progress.”