Increase Indigenous involvement within the BCHRT

Recommendation 14: Audit the tribunal appointment process to identify why Indigenous Peoples are not applying or being appointed as tribunal members. Set specific recruitment and appointment goals for BCHRT Indigenous tribunal members.

Increase Indigenous involvement within the BCHRT

Recommendation 15: Implement options for part-time appointments to qualified Indigenous tribunal members, who may not be available full-time. This could provide a way to reflect Indigenous adjudicative and dispute resolution traditions within the tribunal’s expertise.

Increase Indigenous involvement within the BCHRT

Recommendation 16: Offer human rights clinics in remote regions (going back regularly) to both teach about human rights and to assist with filing claims. Approach law schools for options to work jointly in providing these clinics regionally and to create regional expertise.

Public outreach to Indigenous communities

Recommendation 17: Create a public education campaign for Indigenous Peoples which addresses human rights from an Indigenous perspective:

1. Make materials easily accessible at Band offices, Métis organizations, Friendship Centres, Indigenous political organizations, and universities.
2. Emphasize cases where Indigenous individuals have successfully brought human rights claims.

Coordinating human rights responses across jurisdictions

Recommendation 21: The BCHRT should discuss with the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) a coordinated process for sorting jurisdictions between the federal and provincial bodies when Indigenous Peoples bring a human rights complaint. An agreement to triage claims between the CHRC and BCHRT would assist Indigenous complainants.

Addressing systemic racism

Recommendation 22: Develop a baseline of information and understanding of the racism that Indigenous Peoples experience so that individual complainants are not put to a process of proof again and again. Advance research or statements about common areas of discrimination experienced by Indigenous Peoples. This would operate similar to judicial notice of facts that are beyond dispute, as encouraged by the Supreme Court of Canada in cases such as Williams, Gladue, and Ipeelee.

Addressing systemic racism

Recommendation 23: Develop guidelines and education about the intersectional discrimination Indigenous Peoples may face. Intersectional discrimination may be even more difficult to make out, and guidelines and education for how to do this should be provided.

Addressing systemic racism

Recommendation 24: Empower the ability for Indigenous organizations to file collectively, to advance claims on behalf of individuals, similar in context to a “human rights class action.”

Create an Indigenous specific stream within the BCHRT

Recommendation 25: Offer specialized training to BCHRT staff and tribunal members, starting with recommendations of the TRC, to reduce and eliminate procedural barriers that Indigenous Peoples face in accessing BCHRT services. The goal should be to develop cultural competency and safety.

Create an Indigenous specific stream within the BCHRT

Recommendation 26: Create the position of Indigenous Advocates or Navigators to help guide, support and coach Indigenous Peoples through the BCHRT process, and to help them address administrative barriers.