Legislation

In June 2021, the Government of Canada passed the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (UNDA), formally engraining Canada’s commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) into legislation and a key step to renewing relationships with Indigenous peoples. This legislation and subsequent UNDA Action Plan […]

Since the 2020 announcement of a proposed new federal Aquaculture Act, FNFC has worked with DFO to inform an engagement process with First Nations in BC to develop the new legislation. FNFC works with the Aquaculture Coordinating Committee (ACC) and the AFN’s National Aquaculture Working Group (NAWG) to gather First Nations feedback on developing an

FNFC is supporting a co-designed process with First Nations and DFO to review and update the federal Policy for the Management of Aboriginal Fishing (1993 Policy). Following the Sparrow decision [1990] and the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy (AFS) [1992], the policy was originally designed as an interim operational policy to support the management of Aboriginal fisheries

The federal Fisheries Act governs the management of fisheries and protection of fish and fish habitat in Canada. In 2015, Canada launched a process to modernize the Fisheries Act to restore lost protections and add modern safeguards. Between 2016 and 2018, FNFC formed a coalition with regional First Nations organizations across BC that comprised over

The Province of BC passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (DRIPA, or the Declaration Act) into law in November 2019, establishing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) as the Province’s framework for reconciliation. While this represents a significant step forward for reconciliation in BC, a great