By Amna Shah, MLA for Surrey City Centre
Last week, I witnessed something in the legislature that I never thought I would see. Thirty seven MLAs, including nearly every B.C. Conservative, voted to eliminate the Human Rights Code. That’s the law that protects British Columbians from discrimination on the basis of race, skin colour, religion, sex, and more.
Fortunately, B.C. NDP MLAs defeated this legislation immediately. But the message was
chilling. The Human Rights Code makes clear that you cannot treat people differently because of who they are. It prevents a landlord from refusing to rent an apartment to someone because of their skin colour. It protects someone from being fired over their religion. It prevents a business from turning away a customer because they are wearing a religious symbol like a hijab.
For example, in 2024, the Human Rights Tribunal ruled on a case involving a man who wasdenied service at a massage business because he is Muslim. The business demanded that he “certify you are not of the Islamic faith, which as you know has earned a bad reputation for raping and killing of infidels in Canada and elsewhere,” and then turned him away. The Tribunal ruled that this behaviour violated the Human Rights Code and directed the business to compensate him.
Without the Human Rights Code, he would have had no recourse, and there would be no
consequence for this kind of horrific discrimination. The Human Rights Code has existed for 60 years. For decades in British Columbia, supporting
the Code has been a cross-party consensus. You simply did not try to repeal protections against discrimination. Last week, that changed. The MLA who introduced this bill is Tara Armstrong, who has openly pushed racist attacks on
visible minority communities like ours. She has called for Canada to “reverse mass migration,” which would mean deporting minorities based solely on their skin colour or ancestry. This concept is often called “remigration” and is closely associated with white supremacist and Islamophobic movements in Canada, the United States, and Europe. Remigration advocates support mass deportations of people they view to have cultural or religious values incompatible with their own, even when those people immigrated legally or were born in Canada.
With beliefs like that, it is no surprise that Armstrong supports eliminating the Human Rights Code. What does surprise me is that B.C. Conservatives, including Surrey MLAs like Linda Hepner, Brent Chapman, Trevor Halford, Bryan Tepper and Mandeep Dhaliwal, voted to support her. Former Conservative Elenore Sturko did the right thing by helping defeat the bill.
But those remaining B.C. Conservatives proved they don’t have the same strength to stand up for their constituents against their own party when it really matters.
Although it is conventional in the legislature to vote for “first reading” of a bill even if you disagree with it, parties do often use first reading to defeat bills we find divisive, harmful, and not worth the legislature’s time. In fact B.C. Conservative MLAs voted against bills at first reading three times in the recent fall session. But when it came to this recent bill to eliminate people’s fundamental rights, they voted for it.
People’s rights should be a matter of principle, not process.
This vote extends a pattern of B.C. Conservatives pandering to racist, extreme elements. For example, none of the nine candidates for Conservative Leader have committed to refusing to allow Armstrong back into caucus, despite her open racism and associations with white supremacist views. You cannot claim to represent British Columbians while voting to strip away their fundamental protections.
B.C. NDP MLAs will always fight to protect British Columbians from racism and discrimination.
We deserve leaders who will defend those basic rights, not vote to take them away.
Amna Shah is the B.C. NDP MLA for Surrey City Centre and the first Muslim woman elected to the B.C. legislature.
Source: Office of the Amna Shah MLA office
