The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) claims that our provincial health-care system purposely discriminates against Indigenous persons with its liver transplant eligibility policies. The claim is ludicrous and unsupported by evidence — but that hasn’t stopped the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT) from agreeing to hear a class complaint over it.
The contested policies are a six-month alcohol abstinence requirement that was dropped by B.C. Transplant in May of 2019, according to provincial health services authority (PHSA) statements provided to media, and the usage of a liver-disease scoring tool called the MELD/Na to determine transplant suitability. A spokesperson from PHSA confirmed to National Post in an email that the current policy no longer contains a six-month abstinence requirement.
The UBCIC filed a human rights tribunal complaint over the policies in August 2019, after the abstinence policy was dropped. In a news release issued that month, UBCIC grand chief Stewart Phillip wrote that “the abstinence policy discriminates against Indigenous peoples, who have disproportionately higher rates of alcohol use disorder largely due to the centuries of racist and harmful colonial policies implemented at all levels of Canadian government…”
Although the case is still proceeding, this October, the BCHRT rightly denied the group’s request — citing privacy and patient confidentiality — to access the medical records of approximately 30 indigenous persons that could potentially join the class complaint against PHSA, Vancouver Coastal Health Authority (VCHA), and British Columbia Transplant Society (BCTS).
Here’s the real problem: The policies at issue do not rationally constitute “systemic” discrimination — described by the Canadian Human Rights Commission as “policies, practices, and regulations (that) are rooted in a set of values, principles, and norms that perpetuate racial inequality” — nor can this be proved; also lacking is proof, or specific allegations, that individual patients were unfairly or incorrectly targeted by the policies because of their race. That leaves us with a third option: that the UBCIC has launched a politically expedient grievance. Where better to do this than at B.C.’s quasi-judicial human rights tribunal?
For UBCIC to call the retired abstinence policy “racist,” as they have done, is a hefty accusation, requiring an even heftier argument: it presupposes that the blanket and indiscriminate transplant policy was created with a mens rea — a guilty mind — to specifically target B.C.’s population of indigenous persons. The same policy could — and did — kill members of the “colonizer” class of the allegedly racist policy makers. Including my late and beloved aunt Shelagh, who died waiting for a transplant in 2020 — decades before her time — after several failed attempts to stay sober for six months. More recently, an Ontario woman named Amanda Huska, 36, died in the same manner. She was not Indigenous, either.
In addition to this unfounded accusation of malice, the UBCIC claim also begs the question that the policy makers were “racist” in the first place. Have we checked the skin colour and the beliefs of every person who signed off on transplant eligibility requirements?
Even if we accept that the class action is solely about a disproportionate effect on the Indigenous population, then the request for a handful of medical records contradicts this. The health-care records of 30 potential complainants can do nothing to prove widespread or “systemic” discrimination.
To prove an accusation of “systemic” discrimination, we require data. While Statistics Canada has data showing higher rates of alcohol abuse disorder amongst Indigenous Canadians, we do not have disaggregated health care data to show the impact of transplant policies on this population. This is data that the B.C. government recognizes we do not have.
And the B.C. government’s In Plain Sight report, meant to tackle racism in health care, also acknowledges this: “There is no accountability for eliminating Indigenous-specific racism in the B.C. health-care system, including system-wide data and monitoring of progress,” reads the 2020 report.
This lack of data provided the impetus for passing the B.C. Anti-Racism Data Act of 2022, two years after the UBCIC filed their complaint. The Office of the Human Rights Commissioner of B.C. has said that the act will enable “the collection and use of data to reveal systemic racism and inequities in the province, without further perpetuating racist stereotypes and stigma.” This includes health care.
Just how does the BCHRT suppose it can rule on a systemic discrimination case when it lacks the data required for a judgement? Data that both the government and “anti-racism” activists loudly and continually point out as missing. This is embarrassing.
All things considered, it is difficult to perceive this case as anything other than activist posturing between parties that gleefully peddle in divisive racial and identity politics — and, primarily, no less, over a health-care policy that no longer exists.
The former abstinence requirement that undoubtedly hastened many deaths — including the death of my aunt — was dropped by PHSA in 2019; the latest policy simply excludes anyone seeking a liver transplant who is currently using alcohol to the extent that it is “the reason for decomposition or lack of improvement” in their liver disease.
The abstinence policy was dropped — and perhaps the human rights complaint should be dropped, too.
Indigenous Canadians have every right to point to Canada’s historical wrongs and the ongoing impact on their communities. Canada should never forget this history. We talk often of truth and reconciliation, but I don’t see either resulting from this tribunal case — or from activists’ ongoing efforts to pit Indigenous persons against the “racist colonizers” that are allegedly running the entire country from top to bottom.
Can we stop pretending that absolutely everything is racist?
National Post