Immediate procedural steps

Recommendation 7: Consider these recommendations remedial measures, and implement active and concerted efforts to address the underrepresentation of Indigenous complainants accessing the BCHRT. Create an affirmative access program for Indigenous Peoples.

Immediate procedural steps

Recommendation 8: Create a staff/tribunal committee tasked with developing the Expanding Our Vision Implementation Plan. Indigenous lawyers and cultural leaders or academics with knowledge of human rights should be recruited to join these efforts. The Expanding Our Vision Implementation Plan should include immediate steps to be taken in the first 6 months, and then be renewed on a yearly basis.

Incorporate Indigenous laws

Recommendation 11: The BCHRT, working in concert with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, could approach other human rights agencies to institute an Indigenous ombuds office across jurisdictions, per the recommendation of the MMIWG2S Inquiry.

Public outreach to Indigenous communities

Recommendation 18: Create a step-by-step process for Indigenous applicants, which includes: what you can ask for; outline what help or resources are available; and what adverse impacts may look like for Indigenous Peoples.

Public outreach to Indigenous communities

Recommendation 19: Create videos or fact sheets to talk about cases that have been successful to assist Indigenous Peoples in situating their experiences as discrimination within the BCHRT framework.

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 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.