By: Corbett Gildersleve, News Writer
On May 28, the provincial government passed The Renewable Energy Projects Act (Bill 14) and The Infrastructure Projects Act (Bill 15), much to the dismay of many First Nations and municipalities. The stated goal of these acts was to streamline the approval process to speed up infrastructure and renewable projects. The two BC bills raised alarm bells with their significant concentration of power, with ministers and the government able to sideline Indigenous rights, municipal rights, and environmental regulation. These hastily written bills empower the government to dictate which projects can ignore environmental regulations and First Nations’ sovereignty.
Bill 14 designates multiple existing projects to be streamlined, though it’s not clear what that means. These include the North Coast Transmission Line project and nine wind energy projects that were selected by the BC Hydro and Power Authority in 2025 and 2024, respectively. It also allows for the government to declare a project to be streamlined under this Act. The Act lays out three levels of projects but does not describe what each means. This lack of transparency highlights the nature of the harm that the bills bring forth.
“This bill gives cabinet the authority to override permitting and environmental assessments for projects they deem a priority. There are no clear limits. No binding safeguards. No commitment to co-governance with rights holders.” — Don Tom, Tsartlip Chief
Bill 15 brings concerns with the significant concentration of power given to the ministers and the government. Tsartlip Chief Don Tom aptly explains the harms of the bill: “This bill gives cabinet the authority to override permitting and environmental assessments for projects they deem a priority. There are no clear limits. No binding safeguards. No commitment to co-governance with rights holders.” Section 20 of Bill 15 makes it so the Act can’t ignore the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA). This simply indicates that Indigenous Peoples have a right to traditionally occupied lands and its resources, and the state shall give legal recognition of that. However, through the passing of the bills, the government communicates that it does not actually view BC as the traditional unceded lands of Indigenous Peoples. This is fundamentally colonial thinking. Bill 14 and 15 essentially give the government the right to not consult with Indigenous communities which isn’t compatible with reconciliation.
Under this Bill 15, if an infrastructure project has what the legislation calls a “constraint,” then a facilitator can be brought on to develop a solution. The solution is then reviewed and possibly approved to replace this constraint. If a solution can’t be reached through the consultation process, then the minister can create a solution and use that, or recommend the government use it. In some ways, this makes sense if the constraint is, for instance, that a hospital needs an expensive upgrade to their HVAC system. Then having the government expedite their needs is good. However, the definition of constraint is too broad, and the powers given to the government to push things through are ripe for abuse. A prolonged protest, such as those conducted by land defenders against fossil fuel pipelines, or a hospital strike would definitely impact the operations of a hospital.
Every land acknowledgement that I’ve heard recognizes that we’re on the unceded traditional lands of different Indigenous nations. As such, pretty much every infrastructure project in the province would fall under section 20 of Bill 15. These Acts, when viewed in the wider context of similar bills being passed in the federal government demonstrate that regardless of what work has been done towards truth and reconciliation, at the end of the day, only Canada’s interests matter.
