When David Eby’s NDP government passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA) in 2019, supporters insisted it was about reconciliation within British Columbia. Critics warned it would create open-ended legal exposure with no clear limits. This week, those warnings reached an entirely new dimension: U.S. tribes are now using DRIPA to demand a veto over B.C. economic decisions.

According to a Vancouver Sun report published May 4, 2026, two American Indigenous organizations — the Sinixt Confederacy (representing the Lakes Tribe of the Colville Confederated Tribes of Washington State) and the Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission (representing 14 tribes including American members of the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian peoples) — are amending their B.C. lawsuits to cite the recent Gitxa̱a̱la DRIPA decision.

The Lawsuits

The Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission filed suit against the province in November 2025 challenging the approval of the Eskay Creek Mine revitalization in northwestern B.C. The Commission has also voiced concerns about the Red Chris Mine expansion and the Seabridge Gold Mine. Executive director Guy Archibald says the province has not even responded to their lawsuit. Instead, B.C. quietly amended the Environmental Assessment Act to try to limit “participating Indigenous nation status” to Canadian First Nations.

The Commission’s amended claim — expected by the end of this week — will incorporate the Gitxa̱a̱la DRIPA precedent.

“The Gitxa̱a̱la decision showed that the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act is law. It’s not aspirational. It is the law of the land… B.C. cannot create two classes of rights for the same people.”

— Guy Archibald, Southeast Alaska Indigenous Transboundary Commission

Meanwhile, in Rossland, the Sinixt Confederacy is opposing a magnesium mine proposed by West High Yield Resources in partnership with the Osoyoos Indian Band. The B.C. Supreme Court issued an injunction in March, and the B.C. Court of Appeal recently rejected an attempt to throw it out. On April 29, the Sinixt and the Save Record Ridge Action Committee filed a motion citing Gitxa̱a̱la to argue that B.C. must consult with them and protect the “productive capacity of their lands.”

The judicial review begins this week.

How DRIPA Made This Possible

In December 2025, the B.C. Court of Appeal’s Gitxa̱a̱la decision struck down B.C.’s Mineral Tenure Act, ruling it was inconsistent with UNDRIP’s requirement for free, prior, and informed consent. As legal experts have observed, that ruling effectively turned UNDRIP into B.C. law — via DRIPA.

Combined with the 2021 Supreme Court of Canada Desautel decision — which recognized U.S. tribes with traditional B.C. territory as “Aboriginal Peoples of Canada” with constitutional rights such as the right to hunt — the legal architecture is now this: foreign-resident Indigenous groups can claim constitutionally protected rights inside Canada and demand the full UNDRIP consultation menu B.C.’s NDP wrote into provincial law.

Thomas Isaac, chair of Cassels Brock & Blackwell’s Aboriginal Law Group and a former chief treaty negotiator for the government of B.C., did not mince words:

“I think it’s a ridiculous proposition that we could have American citizens with constitutional level rights that could limit the power of the province, the power of the government of Canada within the four corners of Canada. When you add DRIPA and UNDRIP to the equation that this gets into another whole level.”

— Thomas Isaac, former B.C. chief treaty negotiator (Vancouver Sun)

Eby’s Defence: “Little to Do With DRIPA”

Premier Eby insists the cases have “little to do with DRIPA” and instead flow from Section 35 of the Constitution and the Desautel ruling. He claims B.C. has “tested repeatedly and conclusively” that mines on the Canadian side are not impacting Alaskan rivers.

That defence ignores three uncomfortable facts:

What Eby’s Defence Misses

  • The U.S. tribes are explicitly citing the Gitxa̱a̱la DRIPA decision in their amended pleadings — not just Section 35.
  • B.C.’s own quiet attempt to amend the Environmental Assessment Act to restrict “participating Indigenous nation status” to Canadian First Nations is itself an admission that DRIPA exposure exists.
  • Conservative Indigenous Relations critic Scott McInnis calls it a “sovereignty crisis,” saying the premier needs a “durable solution” now, not “some unknown sometime into the future.”

What This Means For Investment

Resource project investors looking at B.C. now face a permitting matrix that includes:

(a) provincial approval, (b) federal approval, (c) consultation with Canadian First Nations under DRIPA/UNDRIP, and now (d) consultation with U.S. tribes who can sue in B.C. courts and cite the Gitxa̱a̱la precedent. Each layer creates a veto point. Each veto point creates litigation. Each round of litigation creates years of uncertainty.

For Eskay Creek — a marquee gold-silver project — that uncertainty is no longer hypothetical. It is in court. Other mines under threat include Red Chris, Seabridge, and the West High Yield magnesium project at Record Ridge.

The Bottom Line

The Conservative opposition warned for years that DRIPA was being passed without an honest debate about its consequences. The NDP responded that critics were fearmongering. Six years later, the consequences are obvious enough that the NDP itself is quietly trying to amend its way out of them — while telling reporters that none of this has anything to do with DRIPA.

British Columbians are now living with a legal regime in which American citizens, residing in Washington and Alaska, can credibly demand a seat at the table on B.C. mining approvals. That is not what voters were promised. It is, however, what DRIPA delivered.