BC is on the verge of introducing historic new anti-racism legislation, but it’s still wrestling with distrust over whether its good-faith attempts to tackle the problem might end up further perpetuating existing harms and stereotypes.
A new bill, set to be tabled within weeks, will give the government the power for the first time to ask British Columbians about their race, ethnicity, faith, gender, sexuality, disability, income, and other social identifiers.
The goal is to analyze whether certain types of people are being discriminated against or facing systemic racism and other barriers when accessing the province’s health care, education, housing, policing, and mental health services.
“Historically, we know that Indigenous, black and racialized communities, when they access government services there has been unequal access,” Rachna Singh, the Parliamentary Secretary for Anti-Racism, said in an interview.
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“Communities have been saying that, but we didn’t know how to measure that. We cannot bring in the policy work unless we have it in front of us – what is going wrong? Where are the inequities? Where do we need to have better systems? So, that’s what this data will do.”
The addition of information on a person’s faith, sexuality, and disability are “other oppressing factors that are affecting a person” that will help “form an intersectional lens” on people’s lives in addition to the racial data, added Singh.
It’s not clear yet how the government will ask British Columbians to share this new personal information. Singh said that will be detailed after the legislation is introduced next month.
Participation will be entirely voluntary, she said.
Broad support and serious reservations
“People really wanted this,” Singh added. “But at the same time, they were really scared about this. How would this data be used? So we went back to them and we wanted to check with them.”
The government spent more than a year consulting with 13,000 people on the idea, and this week released five reports that showed broad support but also serious reservations about privacy and misuse of a potentially massive trove of sensitive information.
“Nearly all participants voiced concerns about the use of the data: who collects it, who shares it, and who is making decisions based on the data,” read the report summarizing consultations with First Nations leaders.
“Data is skewed to colonial perspective, that the answer is money, infrastructure, etc.,” one participant told the government. “Government data leads to wrong solutions.”
Several people also expressed concern that collecting race and ethnicity information about British Columbians would serve to perpetuate stereotypes, and might make some people unwilling to participate due to the fact they’ve been targeted and harmed by the government in the past.
“Indigenous peoples and communities are all too familiar with research and data collection as a colonial process to legitimize colonialism,” read one report summary.
Still, 92%t of community groups consulted supported the collection of the personal data, saying if government followed it with concrete action it could be a positive step toward change.
“Participants believe race-based data could reduce racism, address gaps in services, resolve inequities, and identify barriers,” read that report, also released this week.
“They want to see the data used to reduce exclusion, allow for equitable opportunities, to understand and reflect the needs of communities and acknowledge that change is needed.”
The government has put in place detailed security steps to protect the sensitive data, and limit access to who might one day be able to use it, said Singh.
BC has also sought the advice of BC Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender and Privacy Commissioner Michael McEvoy about how to proceed.
“We are embarking on something very new, something communities have been asking for,” said Singh. “Something historic.”
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