Media Advisory: BC Court of Appeal to hear case on human rights oversight over family policing agency
December 10, 2024—For Immediate Release
What: West Coast LEAF at BC Court of Appeal to intervene in R.R. v Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society.
When: Hearing datesare December 11-13, 2024.
Where: BC Court of Appeal (Vancouver). See hearing list for courtroom and broadcast link.
Vancouver, unceded Xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) homelands—West Coast LEAF is intervening at the BC Court of Appeal in a pivotal case, R.R. v Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services Society, that will determine the BC Human Right Tribunal’s (Tribunal) role in oversight over the family policing system (also known as the child protection or welfare system).
R.R., an Afro-Indigenous mother, is appealing a BC Supreme Court decision that overturned a Human Rights Tribunal ruling that VACFSS discriminated against R.R. while her children were in VACFSS’s care. VACFSS is a delegated agency of the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD).
West Coast LEAF will argue that the broader colonial and social context must be considered when determining the Tribunal’s role in addressing discrimination in the family policing system. The family policing system has caused long-standing harm to Indigenous and marginalized families. There is a significant power imbalance between families and MCFD, with families often surveilled, punished, and blamed for structural issues like poverty. Indigenous families continue to face colonial harms and anti-Indigenous racism within the family policing system, with Indigenous children disproportionately placed in foster care.
“The BC Human Rights Tribunal can play a key role in addressing the harms caused by the family policing system,” says Bety Tesfay, Staff Lawyer at West Coast LEAF. “Given the ongoing colonial and discriminatory harms that Indigenous families face, and have faced for generations, the Tribunal should have the power to hold VACFSS and MCFD accountable.”
West Coast LEAF is represented by pro bono counsel Robin Gage and Emma Ronsley at Arvay Finlay.
Read the case page for more.
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Media contact:
Iman Baobeid
West Coast LEAF
media@westcoastleaf.org