Ryleigh Sadler

Topic

Implementing the UNDRIP into the Province of British Columbia: The Impact of BC’s Declaration Act on Buck-Passing and Injustices of Misframing

Department of Political Science

Date & location

• Thursday, May 30, 2024

• 10:00 A.M.

• David Turpin Building

• Room A357

Reviewers

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Matt James, Department of Political Science, University of Victoria (Supervisor)

• Dr. Justin Leifso, Department of Political Science, UVic (Member) 

External Examiner

• Dr. Sarah Marie Wiebe, School of Public Administration, University of Victoria 

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Angie Chau, Department of Pacific and Asian Studies, UVic

   

Abstract

This thesis will examine the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) within British Columbia. I argue that BC’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act has the potential to shift the opportunity structures that the division of powers and section 35 of the Constitution has created, that allows for settler governments to pass the buck and misframe injustices. Institutional practices of buck-passing and misframing have historically led to the province completely ignoring or imposing settler colonial frames of justice as means of addressing injustices of Indigenous sovereignty and land dispossession. Buck-passing is a government tactic that leverages the ambiguities within the division of powers between federal and provincial governments so as to blame some other level of government in attempt to escape moral blameworthiness as well as the responsibility for rectifying an injustice. For its part, misframing is a problem that involves misconstruing the nature of an injustice so as to block or obscure possible political actors, arenas, or processes that could play important roles in remedying it. Misframing can be both strategic or systemic. Strategic misframing occurs when an injustice is intentionally misconstrued in order to somehow weaken perceptions of its extent or severity or generally to somehow remove from public consideration or view other actors, institutions, venues, or processes that should in fact be considered as possible political places or spaces in which to resolve the injustice. In contrast, systemic misframing is a result of the normal working of existing social or political structures, so that actors, institutions, venues, or processes that should in fact be considered as possible political places or spaces in which to resolve the injustice are somehow invisibilized or kept from view. The UNDRIP provides Indigenous peoples with a potential tool to challenge institutional norms and policies that have historically undermined Indigenous rights to sovereignty and self determination, and in turn to tackle the problems of passing the buck and misframing injustices within the province of BC. However, this potential will only be actualized if the FPIC principles are utilized to develop consultation mechanisms created by Indigenous peoples. Further, it is imperative that the government of British Columbia actually works with Indigenous peoples to ensure that Indigenous peoples and their legal orders and perspectives are incorporated into all aspects of the policy development of BC’s Declaration Act.