VICTORIA — A timely leak lifted the lid this week on Premier David Eby’s secretive plan to amend the legislation governing how B.C. is reconciling its laws with the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

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Eby targeted the Declaration Act for a makeover last December after a court ruling invoked it to overturn the province’s mineral claims staking regime.

Vaughn Palmer: Premier Eby has placed himself in a trap of his own making over Declaration Act Back to video

The Act established a framework for the province and Indigenous leaders to work together on reconciliation with the UN Declaration, law-by-law over a period of years, said Eby. It was never intended to license the courts to begin overturning laws before the framework had been implemented.

He vowed to amend the Act in a way that would, in effect, tell the courts to butt out.

The government has been working on those amendments since the beginning of the year. It has lately shared the proposals with Indigenous leaders on a confidential basis, while telling the public next to nothing about its intentions.

But all that changed this week when Canadian Press reporter Alessia Passafiume got a look at a confidential correspondence from the province to Indigenous leaders, outlining proposed changes to the Act.

The amendments would appear to weaken the legislation in keeping with the premier’s goal of discouraging further intervention by the courts. Currently, the stated purpose of the Act is “to affirm the application of the (UN) Declaration to the laws of British Columbia.”

The revised wording would instead say the Act will “provide for the government working in consultation and co-operation with the Indigenous peoples in British Columbia, towards aligning enactments with the Declaration.”

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The other proposed change addresses the clause that says the government “must take all measures necessary to ensure the laws of British Columbia are consistent with the Declaration.” That would be watered down to a promise of an “ongoing process” to align “select” laws that are “identified as priorities” with the UN Declaration.

If those are the changes, they wouldn’t come as a surprise. The Act is relatively brief and mostly commits to a plan, updated yearly. It also allows for cabinet approval of side agreements to move along the process of reconciliation.

You might think with the proposed amendments having leaked out in abbreviated form, the New Democrats would release the plan to the media and the public.

But the Eby government is nothing if not secretive. It wasn’t about to let a mere leak change its determination to keep the public in the dark. Reporters who asked about the leak were relegated to a background briefing with officials from the Premier’s Office. (No names, no quotes).

They were told the documents in question represent only part of the larger consultation process with Indigenous leaders. The amendments themselves were intended to protect the province from further legal exposure.

Attorney General Niki Sharma released a statement that said the goal was to reduce “legal uncertainty” after the December court decision on the mineral claims legislation. She blasted unnamed “bad-faith actors” for having “used this moment to spread misinformation and fear about our work on reconciliation.”

Yet public alarm over reconciliation has also been fuelled by alarmist comments from Eby and Sharma.

Both condemned the court for misinterpreting the Declaration Act. Both said last August’s court recognition of Cowichan Aboriginal title over public and private land in Richmond put the status of private property at risk.

Meanwhile, the secrecy continues.

The government went ahead Wednesday with a technical briefing on its proposals for Indigenous leaders only. Those leaders who got their own copy of the leaked letter on Monday have been given just until 4 p.m. on Friday to provide feedback.

I gather the letter acknowledged the “compressed timelines” on what passes for Indigenous consultation on the Declaration Act. The premier himself has earlier characterized the process as “a very truncated timeline of necessity.”

There’s another closed-door session set for Indigenous leaders next week with Eby, Sharma and Spencer Chandra Herbert, the minister of Indigenous relations and reconciliation.

The government is then expected to introduce the proposed amendments into the legislature — finally sharing them with the public — and use its majority to enact them in the remaining six weeks or so of the session. With the Opposition Conservatives calling for outright repeal of the Declaration Act, it would set the stage for a bitter showdown.

The premier can’t expect any help from Indigenous leaders, who don’t like the rush job and whose preference is for leaving the Declaration Act as it is. Robert Phillips of the First Nations summit caught the mood this week in an interview with Alec Lazenby of Postmedia News.

“I think the premier is looking for a way out of this, to save face even, and it’s very difficult to do, because we don’t know what the heck he’s doing,” said Phillips. “Very smart man, but for this, he’s put himself in a big corner.”

Nor is the public, kept in the dark much longer than necessary, likely to spare much sympathy for the premier, placed in a trap of his own making.

vpalmer@postmedia.com