B.C.'s human rights commissioner released a new report Wednesday (Aug. 14), spotlighting 10 key issues impacting communities and her office has plans for follow-up reports every three years.
The Office of the Human Rights Commissioner released "Rights in Focus: Lived Realities in B.C." Wednesday (Aug. 14) in Vancouver, which is meant to highlight the inequities and injustices affecting 10 systems in the province. It's also meant to serve as a baseline to monitor change over time.
The rights in focus include: housing, adequate standard of living, education, health, fair treatment in public spaces, employment, treatment in criminal justice, treatment in family spheres, treatment by the child welfare system and a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
Commissioner Kasari Govender said her office intends to replicate the report every three issues, re-examining the same key issues with different spotlights on lived experience.
"My hope is that this series will provide a useful snapshot of human rights issues facing British Columbia, show where there are opportunities to create social and legal change and how the human rights landscape is evolving over time."
Govender said these rights impact all British Columbians, but specifically those in marginalized communities.
"Many residents of B.C. experience violations of their human rights in multiple areas of life in ways that intersect and compound."
Govender was joined by Zoe Craig-Sparrow, Justice for Girls Indigenous Rights and Environmental Justice director; Raji Mangat, West Coast LEAF's executive director; and Dawn Hemingway, professor emerita at the University's of Northern B.C.'s school of social work, gender/women's studies and health sciences.
Human rights, Craig-Sparrow said, are inherently intersectional.
"Realization of human rights is individually connected to the protection of the lands, water and natural world where Indigenous people have lived ... This report emphasizes that climate change is an uncharted threat to the foundation of human rights.
Craig-Sparrow added that environmental degradation and climate change doesn't affect all people equally.
"It amplifies the harms of colonization, genocide, violence and systemic racism that Indigenous people already face, threatening our culture, health, territory, land, waters and rights."
Mangat said the 10 systems highlighted in the report do not exist in a vacuum.
"They reflect societal assumptions, prejudices and value judgments. Systems might sound kind of abstract, but the impacts of systemic discrimination are stark and real, and felt deeply by those facing multiple forms of oppression."
Hemingway added that the structural issues addressed in the report are "embedded in our socioeconomic system, both past and present."
"These are at the very foundation of discriminatory practices and the failure to meet the basic needs of every person. We live in a world that has the resources and the know-how to do precisely that."
Asked how this report applies to the different and diverse communities throughout the province, Govender said as part of a larger project, her office did "deeper dives in four communities in the province," releasing "community briefs" over the last number of months.
She said they were examples and opportunities to better understand "what's happening in the four corners of the province."
"I learned two things in that process," she said. "One is how incredibly consistent some of the stories are and the issues that emerge in this report, Rights in Focus, really reflect that provincial perspective of no matter how diverse our communities are, people are struggling.
But Govender added there is also "specificity" in how some of those issues show up in different ways.
"For example, I was really struck by food security issues in Cranbrook and thinking through how those show up and the issues of people trying to access food in that community."
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