Statutory legislation endows a government agency with administrative discretion in structuring evidence exchanges in Indigenous consultations over resource projects. Those projects are contentious issues, and evidence shall be evaluated impartially on both sides to make a balanced decision. In ordering the evidence submissions and evaluations, an agency imposes mandatory requirements that burden the reasoning capacity of Indigenous arguers to challenge a project. The diminished reasoning capacity to disagree makes it easy for an agency to produce motivated responses toward outstanding concerns. The article aims not to challenge the validity of administrative discretion but to reveal how burdens originating from statutory discretion can be a “legal source” of authoritative criticism and fallacious reasoning in a state-led adjudication.
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