B.C. judge overturns ‘unprecedented’ human rights decision

A decision awarding $150,000 in damages for discrimination to an Indigenous mom whose children were taken from her and put in foster care has been overturned by a B.C. judge. Justice Geoffrey Gomery said the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal’s decision should be set aside due to “legal errors and procedural unfairness.” He also found that the tribunal did have jurisdiction to decide the complaint and ordered a new hearing.
“(The mother) may yet be entitled to a remedy based on a correct legal analysis,” he concluded in Monday’s ruling.
But Jonathan Blair, a lawyer representing the mother in the judicial review, said the decision is not only “unfortunate and disappointing,” but that there are “many grounds for appeal.” Blair, who is with the Community Legal Assistance Society, did not say if the mother plans to appeal or on what grounds, but did outline a number of issues with the judge’s decision, including what he described as a “regressive understanding of human rights and equality.”
The tribunal’s decision
B.C.’s Human Rights Tribunal decided the case in December of 2022, calling it an “unprecedented complaint.”
The mother referred to only as R.R., brought the complaint against the Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society after her four children were apprehended and put into foster care, where they remained for more than two years. Ultimately, the tribunal found that VACFSS “did not have a reasonable basis to conclude that R.R.’s children were in need of protection.”
Tribunal member Devin Cousineau ruled that the apprehension of the woman’s children and the subsequent limits on her access to them – which included months-long periods of no contact whatsoever – was discriminatory, rooted in stereotypes about and prejudice against her as an Indigenous mom who had experienced mental health issues.
“It exposes systemic forces of discrimination and their profound impacts on an Indigenous mother,” Cousineau wrote.
“The discrimination in this case is the effect of a wider web of laws, policies, and practices which interact to create a system stacked against Indigenous families, especially single mothers living in poverty, with disabilities, and with children with disabilities.”
VACFSS appealed the decision in January of 2023 on the grounds that the tribunal overstepped its authority and ruled on a matter outside of its jurisdiction…
Source: bc.ctvnews.ca/