BCSC Decision Suggests Implications For UNDRIP Legislation In Canada

In November 2019, British Columbia became the first Canadian jurisdiction to incorporate the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) into law, through an Act which "required the government of British Columbia to 'prepare and implement an action plan to achieve the objectives of the Declaration.' "¹

In June 2021, the federal government followed suit by passing its own legislation intended to "'affirm the Declaration as a universal international human rights instrument with application in Canadian law' and to provide a framework for the federal government's implementation of the [D]eclaration."²

The implications of UNDRIP legislation have been vigorously debated. In the Supreme Court of British Columbia's (Court) recent decision Thomas and Saik'uz First Nation v. Rio Tinto Alcan Inc. (Saik'uz First Nation), the defendants (Canada, the Province of British Columbia, and Rio Tinto Alcan Inc.) argued that "the recent UNDRIP legislation