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General
Vancouver, B.C. – B.C.’s Human Rights Commissioner launched a report today that takes a focused look at 10 key systems impacting human rights in British Columbia. Rights in Focus: Lived Realities in B.C. highlights significant inequities and injustices affecting B.C. residents, providing a crucial tool to understand the current state of human rights in our province and a kind of baseline to monitor change over time.
The systems selected for the report are those that most impact B.C. residents’ social, economic and political lives. The issues discussed include inequities in housing, the social safety net, health care, education, employment, child welfare, criminal justice, public spaces and the family sphere, as well as the effects of the environmental crisis.
“Across B.C., there are inequalities in the systems we interact with every day or when we are in need of extra support—from schools to workplaces; from hospitals to courthouses,” said Commissioner Govender. “Such inequities impact all of us, but impact marginalized people and communities in particular. We must ensure that we place human rights considerations at the centre of key issues concerning housing, climate, child protection, criminal justice and public health because these systems are instrumental in either protecting or undermining our human dignity and rights entitlements.”
Developed through community-based research, surveys of direct service organizations, sectoral community grants and secondary research, the Rights in Focus report examines each issue presented through a human rights lens. The Rights in Focus report also includes a “spotlight” for each section, which zoom in on a particular aspect of each issue, such as the spotlight on the impact of employment inequities on migrant workers or the spotlight on the right to education and services for children and young people with disabilities.
This is the Commissioner’s first Rights in Focus report. New reports will be added to the series every three years to reexamine the key issues, chart human rights progress and find opportunities for social and legal change in the human rights landscape.
To share more information about the Rights in Focus report, BC’s Office of the Human Rights Commissioner will host a free public webinar on Sep. 4, 2024, at 10 a.m. At the webinar, the Commissioner will discuss the report’s purpose and how it was create and will answer some questions from the public. Register in advance at: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_M_zk-h8RRXKNpH2waT_sIw#/registration
Rights in focus: A sample of findings
The right to housing: B.C. residents face the highest rate of unaffordable housing in Canada. As a result, homelessness and encampments are on the rise: the 2023 homeless count identified 31 per cent more people experiencing homelessness when compared with 2020/21.
The right to an adequate standard of living: About one in nine B.C. residents lives in poverty. Moreover, after years of decline, the poverty rate rose from 7.6 per cent in 2020 to 11.6 per cent in 2022.
The right to education: In B.C., there are large differences between groups in educational outcomes. 92 per cent of all students complete secondary school in six years, but only 78 per cent of students with disabilities, and 75 per cent of Indigenous students.
The right to fair treatment in employment: One in 10 respondents to a poll conducted for our Office reported experiencing discrimination based on their identity when applying for a job in B.C. This is consistent with other research that shows that people from marginalized identity groups are less likely to be employed, work in secure jobs or hold managerial roles and they earn less for their work.
The right to health: Many people lack access to basic care, including 17 per cent who are without a regular health care provider. Both the COVID-19 pandemic and the toxic drug crisis have placed unprecedented additional demands on an already stretched health care system.
The right to fair treatment in public spaces: One in five Canadians, including 29 per cent of racialized people, have experienced some form of hate, harassment or violence online. Hate incidents rose dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic, and again in response to recent violence in Gaza. This rise is reflected in police-reported hate crimes, but also in the many incidents not reported to police
The right to fair treatment in criminal justice: Indigenous and racialized people, as well as people with mental health or substance use (MHSU) disorders, are at severely increased risk of interactions with the criminal justice system. For example, on any given day in 2023, about 1,829 individuals were in B.C. correctional centres and over one-third (662) of them identified as Indigenous.
The right to fair treatment in the family sphere: Regardless of employment status, women spend more time than men on childcare and household chores. This additional domestic burden is compounded by lower pay in the workforce, together increasing economic vulnerability and making it hard to leave abusive relationships.
The right to fair treatment by the child welfare system: The number of children and youth in care (CYIC) has decreased in recent years, but the child welfare system disproportionately affects children from marginalized families, particularly those who are Indigenous, experiencing poverty or living with disabilities. For example, despite making up only 10 per cent of the population, 68 per cent of CYIC are Indigenous.
All human rights depend on a clean, healthy and sustainable environment: The harm falls disproportionately on marginalized people, who have contributed least to the crisis and whose rights are already least secure. This was evident in recent years as unprecedented flooding, heat waves, and wildfires destroyed biodiversity, lives and property across the province.
Quotes from community members
Raji Mangat, Executive Director, West Coast LEAF
“The Rights in Focus report sheds light on the diverse, yet interconnected systems that feature in people’s everyday experiences of inequities in our province. Uniquely, the report approaches fair treatment in the family sphere and in the family policing system (or child welfare system) as human rights issues. This is an important contribution. At West Coast LEAF, we’ve seen in our work on family policing how ableist, colonial, classist and racist judgements about caregiving perpetuate and exacerbate inequities, violate parents’ and children’s human rights and tear children away from their families and cultures. The focus in the report on the feminization of poverty is another welcome shift in how we think about human rights. The undervaluing of caregiving work is at the heart of many human right violations impacting women and people marginalized on the basis of gender, particularly in the areas of equity in employment and health care access.”
Dawn Hemingway, Professor Emerita, School of Social Work, Gender/Women’s Studies and Health Sciences, UNBC, and well-known community activist
“I firmly believe that everyone, by virtue of being human, has the right to live their life to the fullest. The work of the Office of the Human Rights Commissioner augments the growing voices and initiatives of community members across the province and makes an important contribution to ensuring that everyone in B.C. has a good quality of life and can themselves contribute to the betterment of society as a whole.”
Zoe Craig-Sparrow, Director of Indigenous Rights and Environmental Justice, Justice for Girls
“The Rights in Focus report is an important first step to understanding, addressing and preventing human rights violations in B.C. I am proud to have worked with BCOHRC and supported their efforts to meaningfully engage with Indigenous peoples, communities and rights defenders. This kind of respectful dialogue with Indigenous peoples is necessary to understand the complexity and intersectionality of our lived experiences and human rights violations—particularly in the context of climate change and environmental justice, over-criminalization, culture and health and violence against Indigenous women and girls. Climate change fundamentally threatens our rights today and for generations to come. Climate change amplifies the harms of colonialism, genocide, violence and systemic racism that Indigenous peoples already face. I am hopeful this report will increase action and accountability on climate change and give our Province the wake-up call it needs to prioritize human rights over fossil fuels—as we are compelled to do not only under domestic and international human rights law, but also under Indigenous law.”
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Media contact
To request an interview with Commissioner Kasari Govender, please contact Lindsey Bertrand, Manager, Communications, at or 1-604-306-7369.
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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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