In last year’s annual report, we provided a status report on the first year of the three-year Human Rights Project Charter between the three project partners – the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services (MCSCS), the Ministry of Government Services (MGS) and the OHRC. This work resulted from the settlement of a long-standing human rights complaint by Michael McKinnon against MCSCS. Its purpose is to support MCSCS’ human rights organizational change initiatives, and to make sure the change process addresses public interest concerns.
Since July 2012, the project partners have worked intensively on the project. Four subcommittees were established to work in the areas of employment and client services:
These subcommittees have each met for roughly 10 – 12 full days, have identified human rights gaps, barriers and opportunities, and are proposing recommendations and initiatives to address these change objectives.
Because of the project’s special focus on the needs and concerns of Aboriginal employees and clients, an Aboriginal Advisory Subcommittee (AAS) was also established. The AAS has met several times. Its members sit on the other subcommittees and bring to the discussions a focus on the needs and concerns of Aboriginal Peoples. The AAS has provided input into all of the other subcommittees’ recommendations, and is developing a strategic plan for MCSCS’ Aboriginal employees’ and clients’ human rights.
Each subcommittee includes 15 – 20 members with a broad range of roles and experience in the Ministry, including front-line staff and managers. MGS and the OHRC also take part in all subcommittees. All members were trained on human rights before subcommittees met, and were given background information about the project at their initial meeting. Members’ strong commitment to human rights and their diversity of experiences and perspectives have been extremely helpful in identifying the human rights strengths, gaps, barriers and opportunities in Correctional Services, and proposing workable solutions.
In addition, a Client Working Group has been established, and includes representatives from community agencies. Its role is to enhance understanding of Ministry clients’ human rights concerns.
An External Advisory Group (EAG) has also been set up and includes external expertise in Aboriginal issues, human rights and organizational change. The EAG will provide valuable advice to the Project Sponsors.
The Evaluation Working Group is developing an evaluation plan for the project to assess and measure how well the project meets its objectives, and how effective the subcommittees’ initiatives and recommendations are.
Members have raised many themes in subcommittee discussions, including:
Recommendations made by the subcommittees are being refined, and will be reviewed and approved during the summer of 2013. Implementation of recommended initiatives is scheduled to start in the fall and continue beyond August 2014, the scheduled end date of the project.
More work will be done to identify human rights concerns of MCSCS clients, and to develop initiatives to address the concerns.
MCSCS (Correctional Services) is responsible for its own change process in this project, and for its own compliance with the Code. However, the OHRC will continue to provide expertise and advice to influence the change. As the Ministry begins implementation over the final scheduled year of the project, the OHRC will work with project partners and committees to focus on several areas that make it as likely as possible that the project will spur significant, lasting change:
We look forward to continuing to work effectively with MCSCS and MGS, and maintaining the project’s momentum towards lasting human rights organizational change.
[If] the respondents … refused to play ball, then [Daniel Hill] would convene a board of inquiry, public hearing of the complaint. And Dan handled that with particular flair. He would go around the community in which the act of discrimination occurred and he would recruit people to come out and watch the hearing so that when we went to a public hearing, the place would be mobbed.
And there’s nothing like the experience for one who discriminates to try to defend their policies in a hearing room filled with members of the very minority group against whom he had discriminated. It was a salutary experience for these guys. And one after the other, they would cave in immediately, before a hearing, immediately after a hearing, and sometimes right in the middle of a hearing.
Alan Borovoy, former General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Early days at the OHRC