Today the Special Committee on Reforming the #BCPoliceAct heard from the Ministries of Health, Mental Health and Addictions, Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation and Public Safety and Solicitor General. Consistent themes emerged across all presentations. 1/ #bcpoli

First the Ministries of Health and Mental Health and Addictions. Their staff highlighted the roles of Health and Police authorities to de-escalate and treat people experiencing a mental health and substance use crisis. 2/ #bcpoli #BCPoliceAct

We learned about a toolkit developed in 2018 by the Ministries of Health and Attorney General to better manage the interactions between the authorities. 3/ #bcpoli #BCPoliceAct

Since 2016 British Columbia has been challenged with a substance use and overdose crisis. 2020 was the deadliest year so far with more than 1550 deaths from drug poisonings. 4/ #bcpoli #BCPoliceAct #opioidcrisis

As with previous presenters Ministry staff highlighted the systemic discrimination, bias and racism. They noted that 16% of the overdose deaths (January-May 2020) were Indigenous people despite only making up 6% of the BC population. 5/ #bcpoli #BCPoliceAct

The #MentalHealth crisis challenging communities across BC was made worse by the defunding of programs & services for mental health and addictions through the early 2000’s. Now we are left with results of those ill-advised decisions. 6/ #bcpoli #BCPoliceAct

When addressing systemic discrimination, bias, and racism across multiple Ministries the provincial gov't must provide a cohesive approach and clear protocol to ensure a person in mental health crisis will receive consistent treatment between departments. 7/ #bcpoli #BCPoliceAct

Next the Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation. Indigenous people continue to be overrepresented in the BC justice system. 8/ #bcpoli #BCPoliceAct

In November 2019, British Columbia was the first to legislate the 46 articles of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act in Canada. As a result, all existing and future laws in the province need to align with the articles in the Declaration Act. 9/ #bcpoli

The review of the #BCPoliceAct is the first comprehensive review of existing legislation since the passing of the Declaration Act and no doubt the detail of our work will be scrutinized. 10/ #bcpoli

This year we saw new examples of militarized police force used against Indigenous hereditary leaders on their own territory. This has been happening for centuries and, as the Chief Coroner showed, Indigenous people are far overrepresented in police-involved fatalities.11/ #bcpoli

Reviewing legislation is one part of the work. Gov't needs to develop a consistent cross-government approach to addressing the long-established culture of institutionalized discrimination, bias and racism against Indigenous people in British Columbia. 12/ #bcpoli #BCPoliceAct

Finally, the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General. This was a continuation of their earlier presentation. They covered systemic racism and reconciliation. 13/ #bcpoli #BCPoliceAct

Again, we heard that a lack of comprehensive data collection is a significant challenge for identifying systemic racism, trends and slows the response while not providing policy-makers the context they need to make an informed decision. 14/ #bcpoli #BCPoliceAct

It is really difficult to keep hearing this admission and it makes me wonder - if we do not have comprehensive data, then what is informing decisions? Without quality data we will just rely far too heavily on the status quo bias. 15/ #bcpoli #BCPoliceAct

It’s becoming clear to me how systemic discrimination, bias and racism have become so entrenched in all our institutions. If we do not collect the data, then decisions are made in the dark. Nothing about this acceptable. 16/ #bcpoli #BCPoliceAct

I look forward to further exploring the ideas the Ministry put forward such as investigating culturally appropriate alternative services, community based and diverse boards of governance and better data collection. 17/ #bcpoli #BCPoliceAct