Poll: Voters Want a Say Before Public-Land Governance Changes
The NDP says DRIPA brings transparency and predictability. A new survey says British Columbians surveyed want public approval before major governance changes take effect.
Premier David Eby’s government has spent years telling British Columbians that DRIPA is about reconciliation, transparency and predictability. A new survey cuts through the talking points with a blunt democratic test: when the province changes who holds authority over public lands and natural resources, should the public get a say first?
Public Land Use Society released the poll on August 31, saying Abacus Data surveyed 1,002 B.C. adults online from July 9 to 15, 2026. The release says the comparable probability-sample margin of error is plus or minus 3.09 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. This is not a government poll; it was commissioned by PLUS, an advocacy non-profit focused on land-use transparency. That matters. So do the numbers.
According to PLUS, 86% of British Columbians surveyed said major changes to governing authority, including how decisions are made over public lands and natural resources, should receive public approval before taking effect. The release says 90% said the source of that decision-making authority should be clearly disclosed and understood by the public. It also says 73% wanted the province’s proposed terms, conditions and commitments in negotiations affecting public lands or natural resources made public before negotiations take place.
Those findings land directly on the NDP’s most sensitive DRIPA file. B.C.’s own Declaration Act page says the law establishes the UN Declaration as the province’s reconciliation framework and aims to create a path forward with “better transparency and predictability.” The same government page says sections 6 and 7 allow the province to enter agreements with a broader range of Indigenous governments and to exercise statutory decision-making authority together.
That is why this debate cannot be brushed off as abstract. If authority over Crown land, resource approvals or statutory decisions is being shared, delegated or made subject to consent-based arrangements, the public deserves more than reassuring slogans after the framework is already moving. People should know what is being negotiated, what authority is affected, who will exercise it, and whether elected representatives will seek direct public approval before major changes take effect.
Nothing in that demand requires hostility toward Indigenous rights or reconciliation. It requires honesty from Victoria. The NDP cannot market “transparency” while asking citizens to trust closed-door negotiations on the public land base. It cannot say governance changes are routine administrative matters when a large surveyed majority says public approval should come first.
British Columbians are not asking for a veto over reconciliation. They are asking for clear disclosure and democratic consent before government rewrites the rules for public land. Eby’s cabinet should answer that request plainly: which current or proposed agreements could change public-land decision-making authority, when will the terms be disclosed, and will the public get a vote before major changes take effect?