Agendas for the Cariboo Regional District Board meetings will now include articles from the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous PeoplesĀ (UNDRIP) on their first page.
Chair Margo Wagner said she had never thought of having the articles included until she attended a local government session in Richmond on reconciliation and working with First Nations.
“Somebody said that they were doing that and I thought oh my god that’s such an easy thing to do,” she said. “So when I got back I talked to our CAO John MacLean and he said that’s a good idea, we should do that so we’re doing it. It’s a case of not seeing the forest for the trees; you don’t see things that are straight in front of you that would be so easy to do and to help educate people on the UNDRIP resolutions.”
Because there are 46 UNDRIP articles, Wagner said the articles will appear on the Board’s agendas for at least three years.
“I only got one funny look around the table,” she said. “I think the majority of the Board realizes that for everybody in the Cariboo to be successful we have to develop some good working relationships and it’s all part in parcel of working towards reconciliation and the respect and the understanding of what First Nations are going through.”
The agenda for Friday’s Board meeting included the first UNDRIP article.
It states Indigenous peoples have the right to the full enjoyment, as a collective or as individuals, of all human rights and fundamental freedoms as recognized in the Charter of the United Nations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law.