B.C.'s top human rights official highlighted challenges identified in Cranbrook during a stop at the Key City Theatre on Thursday, June 27.
Kasari Govender, Commissioner of the B.C. Office of the Human Rights Commission, gave a deep dive into a series of Community Briefs, as Cranbrook was one of four communities that the office studied,parsing human rights issues at the local level.
That report was issued in April. However, Govender spoke about the process and the findings during a presentation in front of a crowd that included social services advocates and local government officials.
Attendees also got the opportunity to ask questions, as subjects included local government roles to respecting human rights with tent encampments, how the Office of the Human Rights Commission influences provincial legislation, and ensuring Indigenous human rights — including how the history of the residential school system and its inter-generational impacts is taught in the K-12 school system.
Govender opened her presentation outlining the role of her office, before moving into an overview of the four community briefs and drilling down specifically in Cranbrook.
"On the housing front, we know there's an alarming and widening gap between the right to housing and the reality in British Columbia," Govender said. "In fact, BC residents face one of the world's most inaccessible housing markets. While the housing crisis affects everyone, its impacts are particularly severe for marginalized people. Affordability is the primary barrier to adequate housing.
B.C. has the highest rate of unaffordable housing in Canada, with increasing prices in the rental market continuing to outpace wages."
In 2020, one in three Cranbrook residents were spending more than 30 per cent of their income on their housing.
"That's a very high number," Govender said.
Some demographic groups are more disproportionately impacted in Cranbrook, as 24 per cent of children living with a single-parent household were living in poverty in 2020.
She noted the 2023 point-in-time count that identified 116 individuals as being unhoused, a figure that has nearly doubled since the last count in 2020.
"We know that those point-of-time surveys of homelessness are an undercount, so really the numbers are much higher. We also heard about how being unhoused creates barriers to accessing other services. Access to water, access to basic sanitation," Govender said. "We heard from service organizations that many individuals lost fingers or toes due to frostbite; that there was an increase in requests for incontinence products for folks who didn't have access to bathrooms — a clear violation of dignity and human rights.
Food security was another significant finding in Govender's report.
"Across Canada a couple of years ago, [prices] increased by 15 per cent, so a rising issue everywhere. But in that same period, the number of new food bank clients in Cranbrook increased by 58 per cent in Cranbrook," she said.
"The rising cost of groceries along with the rising cost of housing and other living expenses means that more people need to use the food bank and other meal programs. And we heard about how school programs have also seen an increase, not only among the students, but also among the staff."
There has also been rise in stigma and stereotypes in the community about who is deserving or undeserving of help, Govender added.
"Poverty is a human rights issue and poverty is the result not of individual actions, but of systems that have failed and broken."
Discrimination and hate were also significant aspects of the community briefs.
Online hate is a major driver of hate incidents out in the real world, particularly the spread of misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theories. In Cranbrook, through the community brief, participants said they faced discrimination because of their race, gender, economic status and disability.
Govender also pointed out the disparity in graduation rates between students who are Indigenous, non-Indigenous, and students with a disability, in the school system.
Broadly speaking, common human rights issues between the four communities examined by Govender included challenges with accessing housing, health care, mental health and substance use services exacerbated by the toxic drug crisis
Nasuʔkin Joe Pierre Jr. spoke about the significance ot Ktunaxa language across the Nation's traditional territory, which is intersected by the Canada/U.S. border, and sang a pair of songs to open the session.
He said he was particularly struck by the educational component, noting that high school graduation requirements now include mandatory credits for Indigenous-focused coursework, while also referencing an audience question raising concerns about literacy challenges.
"I just think that that's a really important piece here that needs to be thought about and talked about is the educational piece and making sure that our students, when they're graduating are understanding and sensitive to some of the issues that are being covered here today," Pierre said, in an interview after Govender's presentation.
The rest of the day also included presentations from people who were involved with the on-the-ground data collection for the community brief, which included support from ANKORS, Cranbrook Food Bank, Cranbrook Women’s Resource Centre, REALM Services Inc., Self-Advocates of the Rockies and the Ktunaxa Nation’s Health and Social Sector.
