Canada Is One of the World's Most Resource-Rich Countries ...

But we won't use any of them:

The federal government’s new law designed to fast-track major projects has put the true meaning of UNDRIP’s “free, prior and informed consent” provisions under the spotlight. At the core of the issue is a simple question: does “consent” mean an Indigenous veto over projects, even those in the public interest?

While the prime minister and his justice minister have tried to walk a delicate line to avoid making that commitment, British Columbia has gone all-in on the veto approach.

Under the auspices of B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People’s Act, Premier David Eby has admitted that provincially significant projects on Crown land will not be expedited under its own fast-track law without the consent of Indigenous groups. At the same time, an effective veto is already being written into a growing number of agreements with Indigenous groups covering vast swaths of the province.

One example is the shíshálh Foundation Agreement, which gives varying degrees of decision-making power over 1.2 million acres of public land on B.C.’s Sunshine Coast to an Indigenous government representing just 1,700 people. Under the agreement, all applications for all Land Act decisions in the region will now go through a shared, consent-based or even exclusive shíshálh decision-making process.

This agreement is rightly seen as a precursor to more deals across the province, despite the fact that its consent-based arrangements are exactly what forced the government to pause its contentious Land Act amendments last year after significant public blowback.

Government documents state that “consent” means that “both the Province and a First Nation must approve an authorization before it can be issued.” It is difficult to see how consent, in this case, amounts to anything other than veto, despite official denials in this regard  

In the shíshálh case, the consent provisions “require shíshálh Nation and B.C. to agree to the proposed activity before a provincial decision authorizing the activity.” In other words, even if a proposed activity is in the broader public interest, authorizations will not be issued without shíshálh Nation’s approval.

The agreement goes even further, with a commitment “to explore an exclusive decision-making agreement.” This “would recognize the ‘jurisdiction’ of shíshálh to make decisions in relation to specified matters, with the Province stepping back from decision-making on those matters.”

There is no legal basis in Canadian law for exclusive Indigenous decision-making over public lands, yet the province admits it would not be at the decision table at all — leaving the public interest totally unrepresented.