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The public safety system in British Columbia is at a crossroads. For more than a year, the all-Party committee on Reforming the Police Act listened to the public, experts, and police stakeholders. In April 2022, we tabled a bold plan for change—only to see it shelved by the former minister.
Now, with Hon. Garry Begg in charge of the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General, there’s optimism that he will bring back the 11 consensus recommendations and finally address the systemic issues plaguing the policing and justice systems in our province.
I sat on the committee with Minister Begg. I saw and heard firsthand the incredible potential for real transformation, and I hold hope that Minister Begg will take advantage of the opportunity that his predecessor missed.
The committee was clear in our approach. The recommendations represent a comprehensive transformation of public safety and policing in British Columbia. The report outlined a package of reforms, and a road map that would allow the minister to take advantage of the all-Party consensus we had achieved. We suggested the minister stand up another all-Party committee to ensure all sides of the political debate were involved in implementing the recommendations, over multiple parliaments, and in the public sphere.
Former Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General, Hon. Mike Farnworth put our committee together under extremely challenging circumstances. It was shortly after the murder of George Floyd, across North America, including here in British Columbia, there were increasing calls to defund the police. We worked through those intense social and political dynamics on behalf of the Minister. Our work turned down the heat. We had an organized and calm public discussion about community safety and security. It was frank, but not offensive. We went into the tough areas, in a respectful way.
Despite the thoughtful and unanimous nature of our recommendations, Farnworth ignored our work. Instead, he began a secretive internal process that culminated in a suite of hand-picked policies that ended up in the Police Amendment Act, 2024 (Bill 17) last Spring. You can see my extensive response at second reading to Bill 17 here.
Why Public Safety Reform Matters
There are many stories, both in the media, and personal anecdotes of why the public safety, policing, and justice systems in British Columbia need reform. The general sense of disorder in our community cores was an increasing concern for the public during my time as a Member of the Legislative Assembly. I engaged in the public safety issue mostly at the intersection of the policing and justice systems and Indigenous people.
I repeatedly demanded that Minister Farnworth act to better protect Indigenous women and girls. On multiple occasions, I raised the cases of Chelsea Poorman and Carsyn Mackenzie Seeweed where the police announced they had no suspicions of foul play even before the investigation had begun.
In November 2023, I demanded an answer to why the BC government was spending less than $20 million on programs to address missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, while at that time they had invested more than $50 million on a controversial RCMP unit called the Community-Industry Response Group (C-IRG) that as I described on the record as being led by a “gold commander to harass, tackle, and arrest Indigenous people in their own territory.”
Amanda Follett Hosgood of The Tyee did a deep dive into my question asking “when the public safety minister would spend as much on lifting our people up as he is spending pushing them down?”
I took extreme issue with the fact that the BC government was seemingly willing to appoint a special unit with a high-ranking leader to arrest Indigenous people, yet the government was totally unwilling to appoint a similar special unit with investigators and special prosecutors to finally put focus the numerous instances of unresolved cases of missing and murdering Indigenous women and girls.
Just a few months later, I was back in Question Period asking Minister Farnworth about a report in a court case involving the arrest of Sleydo’ (Molly Wickham), wing chief of the Gidimt’en Clan of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, Shaylynn Sampson, a Gitxsan woman with Wet’suwet’en connections, and Corey Jocko, a Mohawk from Akwesasne.
In the court record, the public heard out loud what members of the RCMP’s C-IRG thought of the women they violently arrested. They called them “ogres” and “orcs.” They also talked about how a high-ranking member of the unit sexually assaulted somebody they were taking into custody.
In 2024, Sleydo’, Sampson, and Jocko were found guilty of criminal contempt of court for breaking an injunction for blocking the Coastal GasLink Pipeline. Now Justice Michael Tammen is hearing an abuse of process application brought by the three.
In February 2025, Justice Tammen found that “the accused’s Section 7 rights—life, liberty, and security of person—were breached during the police raid.” Further, he stated, “I view the conduct as extremely serious involving racism directed toward Indigenous women, that is a group that has been systematically disadvantaged through all sectors of the criminal justice system for generations.”
The Hopeful Path to Police Reform for British Columbia
The members of the Special Committee were appointed to collect information and provide guidance on how to reform policing to stop situations like these, and an exhausting list of other instances too numerous to include here. The committee, the public, and the police, expected Minister Farnworth to heed the recommendations in the report. Our work was thoughtful, and it was thorough.
We didn’t come back with a recommendation to defund the police. Instead, we put forward a plan for a fully integrated community-informed policing strategy. We wanted better independent oversight and asked for better support for police and the other front-line public safety officials.
I have only offered a few of the countless examples that highlight why we desperately need to transform our public safety system—and why we must address the behaviour of the elected leaders in charge of the Ministry. Minister Begg knows this personally, because how his predecessor handled the Surrey policing debacle nearly cost Begg his seat in the Assembly.
Unfortunately, Premier David Eby did not make implementing our transformative report a priority in the new minister’s Mandate Letter. However, I still hold hope that Minister Begg will dust off the report he helped write. I hold hope that he calls the opposition parties to the table, to engage in an all-Party consensus building process to transform public safety in our province. We already have a road map—all we need is the political will to deliver it
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