British Columbia

British Columbia's first rights association was the Vancouver branch of the Canadian Civil Liberties Union in the 1930s under the leadership of a well known academic and social democrat, George G. Sedgewick. By the late 1950s, both the Association for Civil Liberties and the League for Democratic Rights had become inactive and there were no remaining rights associations in Canada. Nonetheless, there were anti-discrimination associations in Vancouver throughout the 1950s including a branch of the Jewish Labour Committee and the Vancouver Civic Unity Association, an organization with a mandate to improve intergroup relations and to strive for the elimination of prejudice. But neither group had inherited the mantle of a 'rights association' in the wake of the Vancouver CCLU's demise [the Vancouver Civic Unity Association was created in 1950 with leaders from church, labour and ethnic groups in Vancouver. Despite the fact that it was not a self-identified civil liberties or human rights association, the Association did not represent any specific constituency but was truly representative of the community. However, it was clearly issue-specific, with a mandate to focus on anti-discrimination campaigns, and thus falls outside the rubric of a rights association.] The first group to emerge from this vacuum was the B.C. Civil Liberties Association in 1962.

Following the formation of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, a host of other rights associations appeared throughout the province. In addition to the provincial and municipal human rights labour committees, a British Columbia Human Rights Council materialized in the wake of International Year for Human Rights. Its Chair was a well known academic from the Faculty of Education in the University of British Columbia, Joseph Katz, who chaired the B.C. Human Rights Committee, the temporary body organizing the province's activities for 1968. Katz was acknowledged nationally for his human rights work in British Columbia; his organization was one of the few to receive a large grant from the Secretary of State in 1970 and, in the following year, was invited to Ottawa to advise the Secretary of State on its human rights program with a group of rights activists across Canada. Unlike the BCCLA, the Council was a collection of associations, not individuals, and acted in a complementary role to the provincial human rights commission; the Council conducted educational work and brought human rights violations to the attention of the commission. While the Council was involved in a variety of activities, its main focus was promoting non-discrimination and tolerance. As a result, it sometimes came into conflict with the BCCLA whose civil libertarian positions would favour free speech, even when such speech was hateful. It was this incompatibility which led the Council to hesitate joining the Canadian Federation of Civil Liberties and Human Rights Associations fearing civil liberties and human rights groups could never cooperate. In the end the Council chose to join the Federation and became an enduring member until the Council's demise in the early 1980s [Around the same time the British Columbia Human Rights Council was folding, a new organization was emerging in the province to take its place: the British Columbia Human Rights Coalition. As was the case with the Council, the Coalition was more an umbrella organization for rights associations than a membership of individuals. In addition, the Coalition favoured a broad human rights approach compared to the BCCLA's civil liberties viewpoint on issues such as pornography and hate propaganda].

While the BCCLA and the B.C. Human Rights Council were centred in Vancouver, a large number of rights associations emerged around the province throughout the late 1970s. An attempt to form a rights association in Victoria in 1969 was unsuccessful but another group finally emerged in the 1979 and continues to operate today as a discussion group. At one point in time there were groups in Powell River, Kamloops, Penticton, Quesnel, Prince George, Comox-Strathcona Courtnay, Kelowna, Williams Lake and in the North-Central and South Okanagan regions. Some of the groups were organized by the B.C. Human Rights Council but most of them were created by field workers sent out by the BCCLA. Through a grant provided by the province in 1973 (later funded by an Local Initiatives Program grant from the federal government), the BCCLA's Community Information Project was designed to send field workers around the province to provide legal counseling services, promote good relations between the police and citizens, and encourage the formation of independent rights associations. Although the BCCLA had been instrumental in the formation of these groups, there was no official link among these organizations; none of these groups had representation on the BCCLA Board of Directors and the only financial relationship was the salaries provided to the field workers through the BCCLA's government grants. Unfortunately, the core weakness of each group was a dependance on the field worker and many of them became defunct once the field workers departed. Only the South Okanagan and Quesnel groups remain active today alongside the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

The following excerpt is from: Jeremy Patrick, "Civil Liberties Advocacy Organizations in Canada: A Survey and Critique" (February 13, 2007). bepress Legal Series. Working Paper 2007.

The oldest civil liberties group that is still active in Canada, the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association [“BCCLA”], is also the most willing to take controversial positions on emerging issues. In recent years, the organization has supported the legalization of polygamy, advocated for marijuana decriminalization, argued that practitioners of bondage and sadomasochism should be free from government discrimination, took a stand against mandatory retirement, and supported the right of private swingers’ clubs to operate. Its name might imply a purely provincial focus, but the group is, in the words of a past President, able to “punch . . . far above its weight” by handling a variety of Federal and national issues. Examples include making submissions on the Review of the Anti-Terrorism Act, pushing for an Inquiry into the Canadian government’s role in the American deportation and Syrian torture of Maher Arar, publishing an early study on AIDS discrimination, and regularly intervening in the Supreme Court. Today the organization maintains an office in Vancouver, has a fairly active litigation program (intervening in 3-4 cases per year), a legislative lobbying program (making 3-7 submissions per year), and a public education program. Like most civil liberties advocacy organizations in Canada, the BCCLA offers limited complaint assistance to members of the public by making referrals, but it does not provide legal advice or representation.