BC voters conflicted over move to involve First Nations in land management: poll

A survey has found voters are divided over the province’s proposed changes to the BC Land Act to include more involvement from First Nations governments in decisions. The Angus Reid Institute, a non-profit organization, found the public is conflicted regarding the topic of Indigenous involvement in land management, according to a media release issued, Feb. 13. Close to one-quarter of those surveyed said Indigenous governments should have no special status compared with other local governments in public land use decisions. Meanwhile, 26% said that Indigenous governments should always be meaningfully consulted in public land use decision-making. The majority of the public also believes the consultation process is moving too fast with only 27% saying the haste is fine because changes to land management are long overdue. More than just divisive, the policy proposal is also little known by the province’s population, with only 13% of residents saying they understand the proposal well, and half saying they'd never heard of the issue before taking the survey. Yet, once they were familiarized with the issue, 75% said that they would support a provincial referendum on the issue. Nearly all of the BC Interior residents (96%) are in agreement that this proposal is a major change in policy. However, people are more divided in what they think the outcome will be. More than half of residents believe this to be a big step towards reconciliation (54%) and agree that most of the land is unceded First Nations territory anyway (55%). 53% also said that this decision will make BC a national leader in expanding Indigenous involvement in land use decisions. On the other hand, more than half of residents also think that this policy will hurt BC’s economy (53%), discourage investment (50%) and that the policy is giving too much clout to a small population, which is unfair to the province’s non-Indigenous residents. If the topic became a key election issue, one-quarter of voters wouldn’t know how to vote and just slightly more (27%) would cast a vote for the BC NDP. BC Conservatives have 20% of the population's confidence, and BC United has even less with just 12%. The Angus Reid Institute conducted an online survey from Feb. 6 to 9, among a representative randomized sample of 802 BC adults who are members of Angus Reid Forum. For comparison purposes only, a probability sample of this size would carry a margin of error of +/- 3 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. Discrepancies in or between totals are due to rounding. For more survey results, check out the Angus Reid website here https://angusreid.org/bc-land-act-amendment-indigenous-groups-land-use-decision-making-veto/ . To contact a reporter for this story, email Georgina Whitehouse mailto:gwhitehouse@infonews.ca  or call 250-864-7494 or email the editor mailto:news@infonews.ca . You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom mailto:tips@infonews.ca  and be entered to win a monthly prize draw. We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above. SUBSCRIBE to our awesome newsletter here https://infotel.ca/newsletter .