The BCCLA was invited to participate in the upcoming Federal-Provincial/Territorial Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Human Rights and to provide submissions on the topic of “Human Rights in Canada in Challenging Times.”
We remain deeply concerned about the current state of civil liberties and human rights across Canada. This is a crisis that continues to deepen with the COVID-19 health pandemic and the fault lines of who is kept safe and who is not; the gendered colonial violence borne by Indigenous women, girls and two spirit people every day; the opioid drug poisoning epidemic killing tens of thousands of our neighbours; and the violent harms of policing and prisons especially against Black, Indigenous and low-income communities and people with disabilities across these lands.
In our written submissions, we outlined ten key recommended immediate actions on human rights in Canada on issues of:
- Indigenous rights
- Medical Assistance in Dying
- Safe Third Country Agreement
- Ending Solitary Confinement and Prisoners’ Rights
- Police Accountability
- Facial Recognition Technologies
- Criminalization of Sex Work
- Decriminalization of Simple Drug Possession
