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Vancouver B.C. – BC’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner (BCOHRC) released a report today that reviews progress made by provincial public bodies on recommendations the Commissioner issued in her first term. Where We Stand: Recommendations Monitoring Report, 2019–2024 finds important progress has been made and emphasises that the Commissioner will continue to call for the implementation of her remaining recommendations to advance substantive equality in the province. 

Of the recommendations made between September 2019 and August 2024, progress was made on 58 per cent, with 11 per cent being fully implemented and 47 per cent partially implemented or in progress.  

“While it is important to note the strides taken to address human rights concerns in our province, Where We Stand also calls attention to the continued actions that are required to fulfil our human rights obligations,” said Commissioner Kasari Govender. “Each of these recommendations is made pursuant to the Human Rights Code and is backed by evidence. While I have substantial powers under the Code to compel evidence, investigate systemic human rights issues and make recommendations for change, our mechanisms for holding duty holders to account for making these required changes is more limited. Tracking and publicizing the implementation of recommendations is essential to creating accountability and transparency for public bodies; our societal commitment to human rights must extend from words to actions.”  

Many of the Commissioner’s recommendations that were implemented center on addressing hate and racism in the province. For example: 

  • Recommendation 10(a) in From Hate to Hope: Report of the Inquiry into Hate in the COVID-19 Pandemic was for reforms to Crown policy directives to emphasize the strong public interest in prosecuting hate crimes and encourage a broader range of prosecutions of hate-related incidents. This recommendation was fully implemented through the British Columbia Prosecution Service’s substantial revision to its Hate Crimes policy (HAT1).  
  • A key recommendation from Disaggregated Demographic Data Collection in British Columbia: The Grandmother Perspective was for government to introduce legislation on the use of disaggregated data to address discrimination accompanied by a comprehensive training and education program. In regard to racism, government implemented the legislative aspect through the Anti-Racism Data Act (since this is focused only on race-based data) and the recommendation on training. 

Despite these and other strides forward, some of the Commissioner’s recommendations saw limited implementation.  

  • The Pay Transparency Act failed to include a centralized public database to assess pay gaps and how they change over time, making it incredibly difficult to chart a path toward genuine equity. It also failed to include enforcement mechanisms like fines or other penalties for non-compliance.  
  • Government has not drafted a policing standard on responding to police-reported hate incidents that includes describing when gender-based violence is a hate crime, developing hate crime indicators, requiring police departments to appoint a hate crimes specialist, directing police to provide referrals to victim-survivors or directing police to encourage people to report and to investigate a broader range of hate incidents.  

“We have been following up with duty holders to address areas where recommendations have not yet been taken up and I am hopeful that more progress will be made,” said the Commissioner. “We will build upon this momentum and continue toward the shared goal of upholding human rights in the province.”  

The Commissioner also emphasized that her Office will apply lessons learned from the recommendation monitoring process to improve the likelihood of implementation and impact going forward.  

This is the Commissioner’s first Where We Stand report. BCOHRC intends to undertake a recommendation monitoring process every three years and produce the next report in 2028. 

Resources  

This media release is also available as a PDF (345KB).

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About BCOHRC 

BC’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner exists to address the root causes of inequality, discrimination and injustice in B.C. by shifting laws, policies, practices and cultures. We do this work through education, research, advocacy, inquiry and monitoring. Learn more at: bchumanrights.ca  

About the Commissioner 

Kasari Govender began her work as B.C.’s first independent human rights commissioner in September 2019.  As an independent officer of the Legislature, Commissioner Govender is uniquely positioned to ensure human rights in B.C. are protected, respected and advanced on a systemic level. In her first five-year term, her work through BC’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner included a public inquiry into experiences of hate in the pandemic, a report on systemic discrimination in policing, community embedded research about a range of human rights issues experienced by British Columbians, public awareness campaigns about ableism and racism and guidance to government that, among other things, informed the creation of both the Anti-Racism Data Act and the Anti-Racism Act. Commissioner Govender was reappointed for a second term beginning in September 2024. 

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