Nuanced. - 235. Premier David Eby: DRIPA, the Cost of Living Crisis & the Future of BC

Episode Date: April 27, 2026

Premier David Eby joins Aaron Pete to discuss DRIPA, BC’s economy, rising deficits, reconciliation tensions, the cost of living crisis, and criticism facing his government.Send us Fan MailSupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

A lot's flurring in the news in regards to the decision not to move forward with amendments to DRIPA. Can you walk us through the timeline? Our partners were very clear. They wanted no amendments to the Declaration Act. And it seemed essential that amendments would have to happen to put us back to the position we were before the court decision. How are you digesting kind of the outcome of this? There was never a world in which we wanted to or be in the position of unilaterally changing this law that could not be more directly related to indigenous people. Are you looking at Nikki Sharma as your successor?

Nikki would be an incredible premier, no question about it, but there is already currently a premiere. How do you justify expanding the PST onto more services while people are already struggling with food, rent, and mortgages? Our economy has shifted to a more service-oriented economy away from goods production and the PST because we never moved to the HST. Can you leave listeners with the plan, the vision, the direction that our government is heading in right now? Premier, thank you very much for being willing to join us today. You do not need an introduction. I greatly appreciate your time. I'm wondering if we can start, as you know, a lot's flurring in the news in regards to the decision not to move forward with amendments to DRIPA. Can you walk us through the timeline? I'll just give you the space to walk us through the journey you've been on in regards to these proposed amendments and deciding ultimately not to proceed. Yeah, sure, it's a lengthy journey, but let's do it. So we got a decision from the Court of Appeal called Kekatla, named for the First Nation that was challenging the Mineral Tenure Act,

and they challenged the Mineral Tenure Act under two sections of law. One is Section 35 in the Constitution, where they were successful, it's not a constitutional law. And the other was the Declaration Act. The trial court said, you can't challenge the Mineral Tenure Act using the Declaration Act in this way. Courts shouldn't do that job. At the Court of Appeal, the court split.

Two judges said, yes, the court can review laws like this, whether or not they're consistent with the Declaration Act. And one judge said, no, that's not the place of the court. So we ended up in a situation where in the Court of Appeal decision, the court found that the Declaration Act had been brought into British Columbia law in full effect immediately, which means that anyone, indigenous or not, could challenge a law or statutory decision in the province using the Declaration Act and get an order from the court that the government needed to take some steps to address it. It's a big litigation challenge for us,

a significant litigation risk for the province, and not what the act was intended to do. We set out an action plan with clear steps about what we were going to do next, what legislation we were going to do next and to do it in an orderly fashion together. So the goal and engagement with nations out of the court decision was, look, can we get back to where we were before the court decision, doing it step by step method rather than the whole thing at once? And that's where we ran in trouble. Our partners were very clear.

They wanted no amendments to the Declaration Act. And it seemed essential that amendments would have to happen to put us back to the position we were before the court decision. And so we began work on amendments that we would be pitching to First Nations leaders. When we presented them, the response, or are you kidding me, you're going to unilaterally amend this law that we co-designed together? And I was like, okay, well, that objection makes a lot of sense to me. So how about being back with a second proposal is we'll put the relevant sections of

the Act on hold. We have the decision from the Supreme Court of Canada. and in the interim or after the Supreme Court of Canada decision will work on how we deal with whatever the final call is on this. And that was a little bit better received, but still not well received by nations. And there was just no, it was us pitching stuff was a bit of the dynamic. And so I made the call that we should go. introduce it, we should, we needed this pause, we needed the protection for the province, for key decisions around major projects and other pieces. And it was, as we were calling the chiefs

to say, this is what we're doing, and we're going to set up a process afterwards that the Attorney General had some conversations with First Nations Leadership Council as part of those calls that were going out. And she said, look, I think there's a road here where there's a willingness to sit down at the table and try to find a path with chiefs and to define it of a defined end date and potentially be able to mutually support something in the next legislative session. So we had a conversation with FNLC, the First Nations Leadership Council, and reached agreement on a joint statement saying that we would work together on some kind of solution without defining what it is before the next legislative session that we would do it in partnership with chiefs across the province.

And so that's the process we're on right now. We're in this, we're setting up the process for us to do this work between now and October and be in a position to introduce something to address the province's legal concerns. But we also think there are areas that the chiefs would like to address as well during this conversation. How do you feel about that seeing as you had made, I think, an executive decision, a leadership decision to proceed? and you're in this situation where I think the uncertainty is going to linger for a period of time. Obviously, as you may have seen, there's been a lot of negative reaction. Mo Amir being one from Van Kuller, who's really calling out this indecisiveness back and forth and feeling like there's uncertainty. How are you digesting kind of the outcome of this?

Well, even if we'd introduced the temporary pause in the legislature, it was with the aim of sitting down with nations and getting to something that we can mutually round. So there would still be that questionable. What's the final answer going to look like? What this costs us is a period of about six months where people could file litigation challenges. And the course move quickly, they don't move that quickly. So maybe we can be hopeful about what the impact is going to be there as minimal. But it does, there, there is an impact there. But the benefit is significant of having a, lasting and durable solution. And if there's an opportunity to get that, that's where I want to get.

And, you know, the where we were in this kind of like, we're going this way, we're going to do it this way. I know you don't like it, but we're doing it anyway. I was a deeply uncomfortable position for me, for our whole caucus and, and not consistent with how we've tried to do things since forming government. And so finding that path forward to a stable, long lasting solution is worth the time. And so as is trying to find that path together for the long term. I have to confess, Premier, as a First Nations chief, I feel rather uncomfortable with the dynamic you've been put in in regards to this,

just seeing a group of voices, some of which are not formally elected by British Columbians, having this level of influence on your ability to make decisions, your government's ability to make decisions, I just feel a bit uneasy. And I'm wondering if you can walk me through how you and your government have kind of concluded on this pathway. Yeah, I think, you know, the law is literally called the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. We drafted it together with indigenous people. It was a transformational law. As court decisions come along. We have to deal with it. And I think there's recognition now increasingly that the province is committed to dealing with this. We have to deal with it. But there was never a world in which we wanted to or

be in the position of unilaterally changing this law that is directly related to, like, could not be more directly related to indigenous people. And that was what led to the deep discomfort and frankly, a sense of relief that we were able to get to the table now with all of the key voices and be able to take a swing at getting to a lasting solution on this. And so I have heard those critiques that, that, oh, this means that, you know, the government's not directly in control or whatever. I mean, I believe we had the votes.

I believe we could have gone ahead. It was a decision to take a step back and find that durable path together. That, you know, engaging, it's not unique to our indigenous work. It was engaging with family doctors that led to the work connecting more people with family doctors changes to the law and improving the pathways for American doctors to come. It was like with ICBC, it was engaging with the disability community to say we need to support people who are injured in accidents, but we can't afford this system anymore. How can we work together and find that path? So, and, you know, it's not the same, but it is in some ways like ICBC was

a really hard issue. It took four different swings at it to get there. And this one is so much more sensitive, so much more delicate, so much more history. And, and probably the hard artist issue I've ever worked on as Premier. And I really want to be at the table to design the solution together because it is squarely about the future of the province and indigenous people. And doing it without indigenous people at the table feels very wrong. You mentioned this. And I'm just wondering, how do you respond to your critics and their frustrations with the changes throughout this process? Is that just noise that you're taking in? or how do you digest their frustration with the,

I think you're aware of how Musqueam responded to your comments about where they were at with their agreement and you had said you weren't aware and there was some miscommunication on that front. How are you feeling about some of the criticisms you received in? You know, I understand that people want, and I also want certainty and clarity for the province going forward. We just fundamentally disagree about how to get there. The main critics that we have are the Conservative Party has said across from them. Their view is that by abolishing the Declaration of Rights of Indigenous People Act, that that's going to solve this issue. It is not.

We have multi-billion dollar investments across the province that depend on this legislation agreements around children and youth. and some really heavy lifting that's being done onto the SAC. So it would impact jobs for British Columbians. It would impact longstanding social issues that need to be addressed. It's not just symbolic legislation. This is actually working legislation that's being deployed in the province. And so it is important, I think, for anyone who says, look, I don't agree with this. I think that it should be repealed.

I think the province shouldn't be working with First Nations. which are things that the conservatives are saying to explain how they would address the fact that the province was settled largely without treaty, the fact that the courts have repeatedly recognized indigenous rights and title in British Columbia under multiple governments, BC, liberal, and D.P. And they certainly would under a conservative government too. And so how are you going to provide that certainty? How are you going to provide that so that someone could invest billions of dollars in the province and major projects? We are still a resource dependent province in many ways. And so our economy, a lot of jobs depend on getting this right and providing that stability.

And so when we have $50 billion in major projects in the next 12 months that have indigenous partners as investors, it's their project or as major supporters or receiving benefits from those agreements. And you're going to blow up this act that underlies their child welfare work or that underlies, underlies the environmental assessment that we did together that approves the project to go ahead. Can you explain what the strategy is here and how that doesn't impact so many British Colombians? They're not able to do it and they're not able to say what next after the repeal of the Declaration Act. And that's the crucial part, of course. Sincerely, and as a First Nations person myself, I feel that we couldn't have been more at odds with British Columbians at this stage, with the Cowich-Indish-Indexam.

decision, the Musqueam Agreement, and the 215 unmarked graves or anomalies, as some put it. We have more and more separation between us. And I worry about how things are feeling more and more divided. And as you might know, the comments I get in my comment section on Twitter and stuff are calling me a grifter, calling me negative names, and I can handle that. But I'm just, I'm worried about the trajectory between the relationship. This doesn't feel like two, to parties reconciling and being closer together right now. It feels like we couldn't be farther apart. I'll be honest, I don't exactly know where the end goal is for reconciliation. And a lot of people ask me where I'm at on that. And I believe there should be an end date to reconciliation.

We should have benchmarks where we can start to close these things out, where we can bring peace and we can move forward as one province that serves all British Columbians. And I'm just wondering, how do you digest that? Are you seeing what I'm seeing, or am I starting to spend too much? much time on Twitter. You know, both could be true. Twitter is not a healthy place. You know, I think you're right. I think we've seen a rise in racism generally.

And there are many communities that are seeing that in the province, but it's not unique to British Columbia. It is a phenomenon that I believe has been enabled by some very bad political decision making in the United States. But regardless of that, there is a specific. anti-Indigenous racism that we have seen on the rise in the province. And it's driven by a couple of things, I think. There are people who see political advantage in this division.

And that's really unfortunate. There is a long history of anti-Indigenous racism and without question. Some people feel emboldened by the current environment. But there's a huge number of people that are kind of on the fence about all this. They're like, well, I don't know. you know, how is this going to go? And what are we, you know, what are we doing this for? And what's the point of it?

And that is a job and responsibility of the provincial government. And also a partnership with indigenous leadership to do a better job of communicating what we're doing here, what the benefits are and how this work lifts communities up. When we sign a treaty with a nation, it's very well documented, the economic impact for the nation as well as the surrounding community jobs prosperity opportunity better health outcomes you name it um it lifts everybody up this is why we do the work um and uh and we have not done a good job of selling that and uh and we can and we will uh because we have to the work is not going away bridging that dividing uh requires at least the majority of british clubbians to

understand that this work has to be done and that when it is done projects move faster people have more opportunities for jobs. Health outcomes in indigenous communities are way better, so it's cheaper for the health care system, but it's also addressing longstanding justice issues. You put all those pieces together, I do believe we have something that we can sell to the public and we haven't done a good enough job of it. And part of it, I think, is that as new Democrats, it's just something so obvious to us that we have to do this work. There's an important work. It's necessary. And there's a whole bunch of people who are like, they're just going about their lives, they're just doing their thing. They're not thinking about it. They're like, well, I don't

understand why the government's giving away all this property to the First Nations. Like, I mean, and what about my house? How is this going to affect my house? And so we really need to, and we are in the process of doing a reset about how we're engaging British Columbians on that because we've got to bring everybody along. Otherwise, it won't be durable work. This work can be undone and reversed. That is very good news because I do put myself in the shoes of somebody who lives in Richmond who feels like my house is always sold to me as something that is like my retirement. retirement plan and they're uncertain. And so it's easy to look at First Nations people and go, you're the reason why my life has become less certain. You're the reason I have less confidence. And I don't think that's racism. I think that's just a place of fear, uncertainty, a cost of living crisis. And I think the more I look at them as the enemy and they look at me as the enemy, the more

we're divided and the less we're able to move forward. One quick question I did have to cover the DRIPA stuff is Van Palmer had commented that you have in this interview and in a conversation, raised Attorney General Nikki Sharma and in an article he they wrote had said that you are potentially looking at them as as your successor. Is this true? Are you looking at Nikki Sharma as your successor? Nicky's amazing. Nicky would be an incredible premier, no question about it, but there is already currently a premiere. And we've got a lot of amazing caucus members not currently thinking about secession, but certainly, on the time comes, I hope she thinks about it. The next question is on cost of living. How do you justify expanding the PST onto more services while people are already struggling with food, rent, and mortgages? Yeah, great question.

So one of the crucial pieces for me was that the provincial tax burden on British Columbians, especially lower and middle-income British Columbians, be manageable in times of affordability crisis. So the full and the cumulative tax burden on British Columbians earning $149,000 or less is the income tax burden is the lowest in Canada. And the overall tax burden is among the lowest in Canada. We actually cut taxes for the lowest income bracket and the middle income bracket, although it's a very marginal tax cut for middle income British Columbians. the focus of the budget and the supports on the budget are for lower income, British Columbians. On the PST, there are an array of services that our economy has shifted to a more service-oriented economy

away from goods production. And the PST, because we never moved to the HST, the PST doesn't apply, has not applied to those services. So when you're talking about like geotechnical services or engineering services, the six out of eight provinces already taxed these things and we'll be the seventh out of eight provinces. So it doesn't put us at a competitive disadvantage with other provinces. And it recognizes the shift that's taking place in terms of what's sold in the province. We have to have that revenue to pay for public services. At what point does government spending start making inflation and cost pressures worse?

Well, I can tell you that the deficit is too high and we have to bring it down. We're doing a lot of work to do that. And I can also tell you that in terms of people's dependence on government services, it probably hasn't been more acute than right now because of global inflation. You know, we see most recently the impact of the war in Iran on the price of gas, the price of diesel. Diesel in particular is going to get passed through in the price of groceries. So will the cost of fertilizer? also impacted.

And even before that, people were seeing inflation as a result of the slow and global economy. And, you know, there are definitely factors related to government spending, but compared to the global events that we're sustaining right now, they are infatimal. And so the question is, is now the time to really make families bear the brunt in order to close that gap. And the answer was, you know, we can't justify that when there's an opportunity to grow the economy, to close the gap instead. And so we've really been focused. Major projects are a significant part of this strategy, the $50 billion of investments that are reaching final investment this year that I told you about earlier, reflect thousands of jobs, a huge boost in provincial revenue to support public services. And this is the way that we're going to have to close that gap because, well, we can reduce administration. costs and blow. There's room for us to do that. We're reducing the public service, public sector,

by 15,000 positions. At the end of the day, you are talking about if you want to close that gap, you're talking about cutting doctors, nurses, healthcare professionals, teachers, substance, abuse, support workers, addictions, workers, and others. And we've seen that movie before. It happened in 2001 in BC. And we're just not prepared to do that if we have another option. And we do. A few quick questions. With repeated credit downgrades and rising deficits, how should people try, why are you asking people to trust the government's economic management? Well, the reality is at the end of the day that we're not in a unique position financially,

either in Canada or around the world. So if you're looking at deficits, we're not the largest deficit in Canada. that's Ontario. Ontario is $500 billion in debt. We're at $230 billion, less than half. New Brunswick had a record deficit. Ottawa has a record deficit. The United States has a record deficit. The EU has record deficits. Japan has record deficits. The UK has record deficits. What we are seeing is the cost of delivering services and building infrastructure is increasing faster than the cost, than the revenue generated to pay for those services within national and subnational governments.

It is acute in British Columbia. Our forest sector has been badly hurt by American tariffs and also by a decrease in available fiber. Our real estate market is slow. That's been a major source of revenue for the British government for many years. And resource prices have been really unpredictable. So these components are showing up in British Columbia in a very significant way. and the reason for British Columbians to support what the government is doing here is twofold.

One is we are protecting the core services that they depend on in this really precarious time. And the second is that we have a clear route to grow the economy to drive the payments to be able to close that gap further without having to go to them for further taxes and without having to engage in those cuts that would hurt them. And so the vision of the conservative party is not clear because we sit in question period and one question will be like, why don't you spend more on this? And then the next question is, why is the deficit so high? And so at some point, they'll have to articulate what their vision is, what they're going to cut. They had an unguarded moment. One of their members said that education and health care would face the brunt of cuts if they were in government. Maybe that's the case. But in any event, I look forward to seeing what their proposals are. Ours is very clear. With great respect, the Tumblr Ridge investigation is nearing completion. What accountability should people expect when it concludes? That's a good question. There are three buckets of issues related to Tumblr Ridge. The first is the guns.

Why were the guns returned to the shooter's house? What were the safeguards around the guns? Were these guns that were properly registered? All these questions is subject to the... police investigation that's ongoing, but we're told we'll conclude soon. The second is mental health services. You know, were there red flags that were ignored? Were there services that should have been provided that weren't? We struggle in Tumblr Ridge, as well as many rural communities, to provide emergency health care doctors and nurses to be able to keep open those health care

centers and a time of shortage of emergency health workers, of health care workers. And so the same is true from mental health services. We recently expanded before the incident services in Tumblr Ridge, but they were delivered partially virtually, which is not the same. And so the question about how do we deliver rural mental health services, how do we identify issues where someone could potentially be violent if in fact there were flags that were raised and they weren't acted on? So that is the second set of questions.

The third is the role of tech platform, in this case, OpenAI. the knowledge that they had in advance of the shooting, that the shooter was using their artificial intelligence program chatbot to plan the shooting. We don't know the details yet of what that looked like, but we do know what happened, and we do know the company is prepared to apologize that it was so serious that multiple employees flagged it for senior management, and they decided not to intervene. So those questions and many others will be answered, certainly potentially through the police investigation, certainly through the coroner's inquest that's scheduled. If we can't get all the answers we need on these and other issues, then we'll have to proceed to a public inquiry.

Because the public needs to know on this and on the Lapu-Lapu attack that if only one thing pounds out of this, that we're taking all the steps to make sure it never happens again. Thank you. Last question. There's been reporting from journalists like Sam Cooper raising concerns about individuals connected to your network about potential foreign interference. Are you confident that no one advising or associated with your government has ties that would concern Canadian national security agencies? I don't think any politician in Canada should be boldly suggesting that they are not being targeted by foreign interference or that individuals in their circles are not being targeted and manipulated for the purposes of foreign interference. this is why I've been continually pressing the federal government for access to any intelligence that they have about issues of foreign interference in British Columbia, including individuals and organizations.

We're a bit vulnerable there as politicians, and I'll include all politicians of all stripes in this, in the sense that often there's information that's held by CSIS, the RCMP, or others, that for privacy reasons, doesn't get disclosed to us. And so then, you know, you attend a community event with a particular organization or a photograph with an individual. And it's very hard to know, you know, whether or not this is an individual or an organization that may be under the control of a foreign government. The second thing that's challenging right now is especially in a time when our economy is under direct threat from our largest and most trusted trading partner, we're having to expand our outreach to countries where we're we know there are issues of foreign interference, India, China. And unfortunately, with the U.S., there are serious concerns about interference in relation to independence in Alberta, for example. So how do we manage that need to grow the economy and engage with these massive markets with the fact that governments feel increasingly comfortable interfering outside of their borders? So they're not easy answers on this, but it does require a strong partnership with the federal government that has the ability to gather this information and ideally provide a test so that we can act accordingly to protect British Columbians.

and of course to ensure that we're getting information that's free from foreign interference. I think British Columbians, and you might know this better than me, are exhausted. They're facing a cost of living crisis. Affordability continues to become harder. There's uncertainty with our relationship with the U.S. There's a lack of clarity on private property rights from their perspective. There's just a lot going on. And I'm wondering, can you leave listeners with the plan, the vision, the direction that our government is heading in right now

to bring some ease to their day-to-day life. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, if people are feeling uneasy, they're certainly not alone. And I would include myself in that group. It is wild time globally. And so for us as a province, what is required is ensuring that we're doing everything we can to strengthen what we have here at home to ensure that we're protecting what makes this place amazing. And that is core to our whole strategy.

of leaning into our strengths, whether it's around resource development through mining, or whether it's through energy development through LNG and clean electricity projects, or whether it's through our life sciences sector or tech sectors in urban centers. The Look West strategy emphasizes how government is leaning into these strengths, working with the federal government, to ensure the British Columbia weather's this well, and it's working. We're projected to be the second fastest growing province in Canada next year in terms of economic growth. That means more jobs, higher wages, and better opportunities for British Columbians. And we are redoubling our efforts with the federal government and internationally to increase those opportunities that we have that other provinces don't because we have the ports, because we have these resources.

You know, we've had four new or major mine expansions in the last four months worth billions of dollars of investment, reach final investment decision. These take a period of time to come up and get running. But that washes through the whole economy. There are 180 firms in Syria that provide mining services. So this is the work that we're doing. We are in a very good position compared to many places around the globe. and the government is going to push hard on our advantages to leverage the opportunities for British Colombians to deal with this through structural, not through a one-time payment, but through structural

changes that increase wages and the wealth of British Columbians, as well as, and it will, projects like LNG Canada Phase 2, Solism's LNG, lifting the Canadian dollar for when we have to buy things internationally as well. Thank you, Premier, for being willing to do this. Huge shout out to you and your team. I know we had to reschedule this. lot going on, but I'm just very grateful for the time. I think this is uncertain time, and I'm grateful to hear there's a plan to start to share the work that's taking place and

share some of those good news stories. So people understand what's taking place. I know you're getting a lot of criticism, and I think it's just important, at least from my perspective, to remember that we're all just human beings. Everybody involved wants the best for our province. We have different philosophies and political perspectives on how to get there, but I think we need to continue to remember, cooler heads need to prevail. Throwing mud is not productive. And I'm just, I'm grateful you were willing to share the time today. Better. Thanks for the conversation. Good to see you.