Declaration Act Secretariat

In 2022, the B.C. Government established the Declaration Act Secretariat, a central agency within government to guide and assist the Province to ensure provincial laws align with the UN Declaration and are developed in consultation and co-operation with Indigenous Peoples, as set out in Section 3 of the Declaration Act.

The focus of the Secretariat is to support Section 3 of the Declaration Act by:

• Providing assistance, support, and guidance to ministries to meet consultation and co-operation obligations in development and reform of legislation, and ensuring alignment of legislation with the UN Declaration.
• Developing cross-government processes, standards, practices, methodologies and measures to support the Declaration Act and Section 35 obligations.
• Informing government’s legislative agenda.
• Engaging with Indigenous Peoples to gather input on priorities for legislative alignment and learnings from legislative collaboration/alignment efforts.

The Secretariat is continuing to expand its capacity and is aiming to be fully staffed in 2024, with a priority focus on having roles filled by qualified Indigenous people.