542 THE ADVOCATE
VOL. 80 PART 4 JULY 2022
As recently proposed in these pages,1 both the Declaration Act and British
Columbia’s March 2022 Action Plan on its implementation will necessarily
involve collaboratively identifying opportunities for alignment between
provincial legislation and the “minimum standards” of the United Nations
Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.2 The RCLF program will
include the statute-specific and thematic reviews of legislation that s. 3 of
the Declaration Act calls for, while simultaneously contributing to a broader
systems-wide approach to decolonization through law. These are new ideas,
and there are new demands on us to conceive of our place differently. BCLI
is committed to identifying research and projects that can help to both
deconstruct and reconstruct Crown legal frameworks in this province.
Chief Justice Robert Bauman, building on former Chief Justice Lance
Finch’s “Duty to Learn”,3 recently spoke about the legal community’s “Duty
to Act”—the responsibility that non-Indigenous people have to ensure that
the legal system is not a barrier to justice for Indigenous peoples, but rather
a tool in pursuit of justice. In his November 2021 remarks, Chief Justice
Bauman stated that “now is the time to do what we should have done when
we arrived here as uninvited guests—demonstrate that we care enough to
discover and learn, and to act responsively within the matrix of Indigenous
customs, traditions, and protocols. Now is the time for humility.”4
If it is possible to be at once humble and ambitious, we must be so. As
British Columbia’s independent law reform organization, BCLI is in a
unique position to undertake this work and assist in convening Indigenous
peoples, Crown lawyers, the legal profession and others to help advance
legal reforms that support Indigenous self-determination and Indigenous
justice. Building on our deep understanding of Crown law and comparative
legal frameworks, the RCLF program will emphasize ways that the Crown
legal system needs to adjust to implement the Declaration Act.
Law and legal institutions can be slow to change. We look forward to
developing reports, study papers and practice tools that can support new
approaches. We also look forward to supporting our profession to “uphold
the rule of law and the rights and freedoms of all persons”5 in the context of
legal pluralism.
The RCLF program must incorporate diverse ways of imagining, engaging
and realizing the changes that the Declaration Act promises. Our profession
has committed to this journey,6 and we commit to staying connected with
you throughout ours. We encourage you to visit BCLI’s website at <bcli.org>
for regular news and updates on upcoming events and information on this
program and all of our projects. The staff lawyer responsible for the RCLF
program, Simon Owen, can also be contacted at <sowen@bcli.org>.
/www.bcli.org
link