Systemic Delays at the BC Human Rights Tribunal

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal plays a vital role in addressing and advancing social justice. It was created by the B.C. Human Rights Code, which aims to identify and eliminate persistent patterns of inequality and foster an inclusive and equitable society.¹ Many of the cases that come before the Tribunal raise important systemic issues impacting marginalized people and communities. The Tribunal hears complaints alleging discrimination by landlords, employers, and powerful institutions like police, jails, and government ministries, often brought forward by impoverished and marginalized individuals.

Given its critical mandate, the Tribunal should be sufficiently funded and resourced to process complaints efficiently and deliver timely outcomes. However, for the past several years, the Tribunal has been unable to meet these objectives. Even a relatively straightforward matter may now take up to five years, and sometimes longer, to reach a hearing and final decision.

As a legal clinic providing free assistance to human rights complainants, we at the BC Human Rights Clinic frequently encounter people so dismayed and dispirited by the delays in the process that they walk away from their cases, too exhausted and disillusioned to continue. Many more decide not to file complaints at all after learning how long it will take to resolve them.  Impoverished and marginalized individuals—already the least likely to file complaints regarding the discrimination they face—are particularly impacted. Housing insecurity, precarious immigration status, trauma, criminalization and incarceration all undermine a person’s ability to pursue a complaint through a complex and multi-year process. Many Indigenous complainants, already distrustful of colonial legal systems, find that the human rights complaint process is just one more system that has failed them.

As a result, victims of workplace sexual harassment, people targeted for racial profiling by police, workers needing accommodations for their disabilities, tenants denied housing because they are on social assistance, and so many others who have experienced discrimination are denied any remedy for their experience. Meanwhile, the perpetrators of discrimination are not held accountable for their conduct and do not have the opportunity to learn from their mistakes or revisit the policies, practices, and cultures that led to the discrimination in the first place.

The Human Rights Tribunal’s current backlog is the result of a massive spike in complaints filed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Until 2020, the Tribunal received about 1,200 complaints per year. But between 2020 and 2023, an average of over 2,800 new complaints were filed each year—over double what the Tribunal was set up to deal with.² Many of these complaints related to public health measures implemented to combat the spread of COVID-19, including masking and vaccine policies. Many were brought by people who objected to wearing masks or taking vaccines, but who could not point to a protected characteristic negatively impacted by these lifesaving public health measures. Regardless of merit, the Tribunal must process every complaint that comes through the door, and while many were summarily dismissed, this process took time, resources, and capacity the Tribunal simply did not have.

A much-needed boost in funding in 2023 allowed the Tribunal to increase its staff—including adjudicators—and to implement a variety of measures to tackle the backlog. The Tribunal developed special processes for COVID-related cases, dedicated resources to deciding outstanding application dismissals, and took steps to address the backlog in cases stuck at screening—where roughly 3,000 complaints were pending when the strategy was implemented.³ Much of the screening backlog can be attributed to the number of people who file complaints without the benefit of legal advice and assistance. There are very few resources available to assist low- and middle-income people to draft a clear, cogent, and well-presented complaint. This is a major and longstanding gap in B.C.’s human rights system.

The Tribunal is to be credited for its efforts to reduce the backlog and provide timely justice for parties. But despite its efforts, systemic delays remain. Complaints still take roughly 18 months or more just to be screened and served on respondents, an inordinate amount of time for a complainant to wait when their employment, housing, health, or safety may be on the line.

Delays hurt everyone involved in a complaint. When a respondent doesn’t receive notice of a complaint until two or three years after the events at issue, it can be very difficult for them to get to the bottom of what happened. Relevant witnesses may no longer be available. Memories have faded, and important evidence may no longer exist. Some respondents have argued that these delays compromise the fairness of human rights proceedings and amount to an abuse of process.⁴ While respondents have not been successful in having complaints dismissed on this basis, the Tribunal has agreed that the delays are inordinate—an indication that the Tribunal is struggling to fulfil its mandate to resolve human rights complaints in a timely way.

The Tribunal continues to receive more cases than it is able to process each year, and the backlog continues to grow, albeit more slowly than in previous years. Without more funding, a significant reduction in the number of complaints filed, or some other substantial change, timely justice will remain out of reach for those impacted by discrimination.

1. Human Rights Code, [RSBC 1996] c. 210, s. 3.
2. BC Human Rights Tribunal, “Update from the Chair on Backlog and Delay” (March 7, 2025).
3. BC Human Rights Tribunal, “Message from the Chair about the Tribunal’s Backlog Strategy” (December 15, 2023).
4. Hitch v. Nanaimo (Regional District) and others, 2025 BCHRT 11.