Vancouver B.C. – In response to recent developments regarding school police liaison officers (SPLOs) and the firing of the School District 61 (SD61) School Board, B.C.’s Human Rights Commissioner, Kasari Govender, issued a letter to Lisa Beare, Minister of Education and Child Care, and Garry Begg, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General.
Commissioner Govender in the letter states, “I believe the failure of the Provincial Government to fund research to develop evidence on which to base its SPLO approach, as I have been calling for over three years, is contrary to its human rights obligations and undermines its stated values to combat racism in our communities and improve public safety.”
The full text of the Commissioner’s letter is available here: BCOHRC_Feb2025_Letter-to-Beare-Begg-re-SPLOs.pdf
This release is also available as a PDF (273KB)
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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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