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Vaughn Palmer: David Eby, not B.C. Conservatives, proving the biggest threat to Indigenous reconciliation

Opinion: This week, the premier's messaging careered badly off course

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VICTORIA — Premier David Eby started the week with a cheering section of elementary schoolchildren helping him to celebrate that the province would be switching to permanent daylight time.

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“Every so often we try to do something popular,” joked Eby, hoping that the kids would help divert the negative fallout from his 2026 budget.

Vaughn Palmer: David Eby, not B.C. Conservatives, proving the biggest threat to Indigenous reconciliation Back to video

The premier did manage to preside over a distraction on Monday. Just not the one he and his media events team contrived.

It happened during the followup news conference, when Eby fielded questions about the federal government agreement recognizing Aboriginal rights and title for the Musqueam nation over Metro Vancouver.

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Eby’s response was one of denial.

“I haven’t been briefed yet on the content of the agreement,” he told reporters. “We know that Musqueam has title cases related to territory in Metro Vancouver and we’ll be briefed by the federal government, we’ll have a better sense of what their plans are and what’s going on.”

Eby said he did not have so much as a “line of sight” on the agreement: “I certainly didn’t.”

Later Monday, the premier’s office had to admit that Eby certainly did have a line of sight on the agreement. A photo circulating over the internet showed he was in the front row of the signing ceremony between Musqueam and federal leaders on Feb. 20.

Eby admitted the unavoidable truth in question period in the legislature Tuesday.

“I was honoured and glad to be attending,” he told the house. “I absolutely sat in the front row.”

The premier showed no contrition over what he withheld the day before. Instead he lashed out at both the federal government and the Conservative Opposition.

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“No briefings about the content of this agreement, no heads-up from the federal government,” said Eby. “I wish we had been briefed in advance because we would have been able to clarify some of the comments made by the Opposition.”

That version of the story proved to be no more durable than the “know nothing” defence he proclaimed three times at the Monday news conference.

The B.C. government WAS given a heads-up in advance on the Musqueam agreement, according to federal Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Rebecca Alty.

The news triggered an internal NDP government investigation into who told what to whom here in B.C.

Indigenous Relations Minister Spencer Chandra Herbert delivered the answer to reporters shortly before the afternoon question period Wednesday.

A junior staffer in the Indigenous Relations Ministry was briefed by Ottawa about the Musqueam agreement, but neglected to pass on the news to higher ups.

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Vaughn Palmer: David Eby, not B.C. Conservatives, proving the biggest threat to Indigenous reconciliation Columnists

Vaughn Palmer: David Eby, not B.C. Conservatives, proving the biggest threat to Indigenous reconciliation

“I take responsibility that my staff didn’t inform me and certainly have been clear with them that this is not the way we roll here,” said Chandra Herbert. “There have been too many times where things should have been shared and weren’t, and that includes with the people of B.C. “

He may have been thinking back to Sept. 5 of last year. Lawyers representing the provincial and federal governments went to B.C. Supreme Court to constitutionally entrench Aboriginal title for the Haida Nation over all Haida Gwaii.

They did it — as the court was told — to head off the possibility that a change of government could undo what was already written into provincial legislation and a federal-provincial agreement.

Neither the B.C. public nor Chandra Herbert were told about the Haida court action until after it was a done deal.

In that context, here’s what Chandra Herbert said about the more recent lapse on the Musqueam agreement.

“I don’t want to throw this at just Ottawa,” he said Wednesday. “I think B.C. needs to do a better job of sharing what we know when we know it.”

The premier, under fire again in question period Wednesday, had no hesitation to put the blame on Ottawa for the junior-level briefing.

“There are established channels for communication between us and the federal government,” he told the legislature. “For whatever reason, they didn’t use them.”

Granted, the province had lapses of its own. “Our government has taken hard lessons about needing to be more proactive in reaching out to key stakeholders,” Eby conceded.

The premier’s grudging mea culpa didn’t survive long.

By Thursday, he was insisting “I’ve been as clear as I can be” on the issue, much as earlier in the week he maintained (against all the evidence) “I was frank on the first public occasion I was asked about it.”

There are many words that one could use to describe the premier’s responses on this issue, but neither “clear” nor “frank” would be on anyone’s list but his own.

Eby also lashed out at the B.C. Conservative Opposition for their lack of support for the NDP government’s agenda for reconciliation with Indigenous people.

“You’re either on the team or you’re not,” he declared. “I’m on the team, and I’m focused on what we need to be focused on.”

Portrait of a premier, so sure of his own righteousness, that he can’t face up to how his combination of secrecy, evasion, and denial has put the whole reconciliation project at risk here in B.C.

vpalmer@postmedia.com 

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