Vaughn Palmer: NDP displaying preference for unions over Indigenous relations

VICTORIA — The B.C. NDP’s insistence that workers on the Cowichan District Hospital replacement project take out union memberships has led to an embarrassing standoff with the local Indigenous community.

The $1.45-billion project is the first health facility to be built under one of the NDP’s union-favouring community benefit agreements (CBA).

Companies owned by the Cowichan Tribes have so far been frozen out from project contracts because their workers are not members of one of the unions on the NDP’s preferred list.

The government maintains it is trying to negotiate a compromise with the Cowichan Tribes.

But the lack of progress to date has raised complaints about the party’s apparent lack of respect for Indigenous rights and the principles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.