This week the BC New Democratic Party leader John Horgan called for reinstatement of human rights commission in British Columbia. “With hate speech incidents rising in B.C. on the heels of Donald Trump’s executive order against Muslim travellers, it is time to re-establish the B.C. Human Rights Commission”, said Horgan.Presently there is no human rights commission in British Columbia–no independent public body with a mandate to provide education, conduct public hearings, make special reports to the Legislature, deal with systemic discrimination, investigate complaints, or ensure that complainants receive proper legal representation at human rights hearings.
More importantly, British Columbia is the only province in Canada without a Human Rights Commission.
In 2002, the Liberal government enacted Bill 53 which dismantled the British Columbia Human Rights Commission. Human rights activists saw the changes made by the liberal government as a major step in the wrong direction. The legislation took the public interest out of the system and reduced it to a complaint-handling system for private disputes.
The Liberal government provided two reasons for dismantling the human rights commission in 2002: it was costing too much money and that there was a duplication of services between the Commission and the Tribunal. The annual budget of the Commission at that time was about 5 million dollars. Thus the cost of the Commission was around one dollar per person in British Columbia. This was a frivolous argument as the Liberal government has been spending much more than 5 million a year on government advertisement glorifying its achievements.
The argument concerning duplication of services was also false as the commission and the tribunal had separate mandates. The mandate of the Commission were: to investigate and mediate human rights complaints; to provide educational programs and information on human rights to British Colombians; to conduct research into the causes of inequality and identifying persistent patterns of inequality; to monitor societal trends and patterns relevant to achieving equality and reporting on those trends and patterns; and to put forward public interest in the administration of human rights.
The mandate of the tribunal was to adjudicate complaints of discrimination referred to it by the commission.
Since the B.C. Liberals dismantled the Commission Burnaby-Edmonds New Democrat MLA Raj Chouhan has introduced a private member’s bill three times to reinstate the Commission. Chouhan stated that, “Every time, the B.C. Liberals have blocked it.”
From my ten years experience at Chair of the British Columbia Council of Human Rights as well as Deputy Chief Commissioner of the Human Rights Commission, I can say that the Commission played an important role in advancing human rights in British Columbia.
The Commission developed and conducted a program of public education and information designed to promote an understanding and acceptance of the Human Rights Code. The Commission did this by making presentations to employer organizations, unions, schools, colleges, universities and community organizations.
More importantly the Commission often made statements to the media on human rights issues, thus generating debate and discussion. The Commission also issued annual reports which were educational tools.
I fully support the NDP’s call to re-establish a human rights commission in British Columbia. I am confident that if the Commission is re-established it will advance human rights and equality in the province.
Harinder Mahil is a human rights activist and is a board member of the Dr. Hari Sharma Foundation.
