British Columbia’s government has proposed suspending its Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, according to two sources in a meeting between Premier David Eby and First Nations leaders.

One of the sources says a three-year suspension of the legislation has been proposed, while the other didn’t give a time frame.

Eby said on Wednesday it was “non-negotiable” that the legislation designed to reflect the United Nations Declaration on the Rights on Indigenous Peoples would be changed.

DRIPA has been cited by First Nations involved in two landmark court victories last year that sparked concern about implications for private land ownership and the province’s mining rules.

One of the sources told The Canadian Press that the proposal “effectively places every section of DRIPA” that the government wanted to replace under suspension for three years, and that changes to the legislation would be made later.

The source said the plan was to give time for the Supreme Court of Canada to weigh in, while the second source who confirmed the suspension proposal says there was “complete opposition” from First Nations at the meeting.

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A leaked transcript of a meeting between Indigenous leaders and British Columbia Premier David Eby, about his plan to suspend the province’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, or DRIPA, shows them accusing him of “absolute betrayal” and colonialism. Speaker after speaker in the 17,000-word transcript of Thursday’s meeting, obtained by The Canadian Press, criticizes Eby’s handling of DRIPA, which he says needs to be suspended for up to three years. DRIPA is at the center of a legal and political storm after being cited by First Nations in two landmark court cases last year, including an appeal ruling that says the act should be “properly interpreted” to incorporate the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples into BC laws “with immediate legal effect.”

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