DRIPA, Land Claims, and the Politics of Property in British Columbia

Two court decisions handed down in 2025 have converged to produce the most consequential political and legal crisis in British Columbia since the province’s short-lived Land Act amendments provoked a firestorm in early 2024. This week, MBP Intelligence offers some insights into the politics around this. 

The first case, Cowichan Tribes v. Canada, saw the BC Supreme Court recognise Aboriginal title to a portion of Richmond’s Lulu Island, grounded in constitutional principles that long predate the province’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). The second, Gitxaala v. British Columbia (Chief Gold Commissioner), saw the BC Court of Appeal rule that DRIPA incorporates the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) into the province’s positive law with immediate legal effect, opening every provincial statute to a UNDRIP-consistency review.

These are legally distinct decisions. Cowichan is a section 35 Aboriginal title case that would have proceeded, and been decided on substantially identical grounds, had DRIPA never been enacted. Gitxaala is a statutory interpretation case about the legal effect of a provincial statute that purports to align BC law with an international human rights instrument. In the public and political debate, however, the two have fused into a single narrative about property rights, Indigenous authority, and the limits of provincial sovereignty. That fusion has been politically devastating for Premier David Eby and the BC NDP.

The polling is stark. A majority of British Columbians now say DRIPA goes too far. The BC Conservatives, despite being leaderless and having lost six MLAs since the 2024 election, are statistically tied with the governing NDP in vote intention. The demographic profile of the defecting voters — middle-aged, suburban, property-owning — maps precisely onto the Lower Mainland swing ridings that decided the last election. Eby’s government, caught between a base that wants DRIPA left intact and marginal voters who want it changed, has responded with a series of policy reversals that have satisfied no one and undermined the premier’s reputation for competence.

In this analyis, Shannon Phillips examines the polling data and identifies the specific demographic pattern driving NDP defections, while Ken Boessenkool assesses the strategic risks facing both parties as they navigate the tension between economic development and Indigenous consultation. Later this week, Phillips will turn to the substance of the two court decisions themselves, and to the overlooked role of the federal Crown.