17 B.C. Pride societies call for MLA’s censure, resignation

More than a dozen organizations are calling on Independent MLA Tara Armstrong to resigns, citing a recent attempt to repeal B.C.’s Human Rights Code.

Seventeen Pride organizations in B.C. are calling on a member of the legislature to resign, citing a bill she introduced to repeal the province’s Human Rights Code as the latest example in a troubling pattern.

MLA Tara Armstrong rose in the legislature last month to introduce the Human Rights Code Repeal Act. The code protects people from discrimination based on characteristics including sex, race, disability, family status, sexual orientation, gender identity, political belief, and religion.

The impetus for introducing legislation, Armstrong said, was a decision by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal that found public statements made by former Chilliwack school trustee Barry Neufeld amounted to discrimination or hate speech.

Neufeld was ordered to pay $750,000 in damages.

“The purpose of this bill is to end the assault on freedom of speech by our Human Rights Tribunal,” Armstrong said on Feb. 26.

“This bill will protect ordinary people with common beliefs from politically motivated financial attacks. The Human Rights Code Repeal Act is the only solution to this assault on our rights. This bill will protect the freedom of speech of Canadians. It will abolish the Human Rights Tribunal, a kangaroo court, and repeal the Human Rights Code that the left is using to punish and profit from anyone who doesn’t adopt their views.”

On Monday, a letter sent on behalf of the 17 Pride societies was sent to all MLAs, asking for Armstrong to be censured while also demanding her resignation.

James Long, with the Langley Pride Society, said the move to try to repeal the code amounted to trying to erase decades of progress on fighting discrimination and protecting the human rights of British Columbians—not only those in the 2SLGBTQ+ community.

“I just don’t believe that she’s a representative of the people of British Columbia. She’s a representative of her own personal opinions, and perhaps a small group that that may have strong opinions based in misunderstanding and/or hatred,” Long said.

“It doesn’t just affect one small group. I mean, something like repealing the Human Rights Code affects people of color, affects women—it just runs the gamut. And to even think that that would have been questioned or thought to be brought into legislature, is abhorrent. It’s just awful.”

Premier David Eby echoed Long’s sentiments, saying the bill was tantamount to bringing forward legislation that would make discrimination legal in the province.

The code protects people from discrimination in employment, housing, and access to services, and Eby said repealing it would leave someone who was, for example, denied a rental unit because of their race or fired from their job on account of their sexual orientation no recourse.

“It is a deeply disturbing bill that she brought forward,” Eby said.

He also pointed out that voters have the option of petitioning to recall a member of the legislature—and suggested that mechanism should be used to recall Armstrong and Dallas Brodie, specifically.

“I don’t believe that either of those MLAs campaigned on what they’ve been doing here, which is to increase hate and division, to demonize Indigenous people and attack their constitutional rights, to propose repealing basic human rights in the province,” the premier said.

“It is bizarre what they are doing, and I don’t think there’s support for it in the public.”

Armstrong told CTV News Monday she has no plans to resign, and Brodie said she didn’t think her former OneBC colleague should step down either.

Eby also took a shot at the B.C. Conservatives who voted to allow the bill to proceed to first reading.

“That was a grievous mistake, because people’s basic human rights should not be up for debate in our legislature,” he said.

“And it is important as legislators that when that kind of thing is introduced, we can actually vote against it and express ourselves and say that this is not acceptable, and this is not something that we’re going to stand for.”

The Opposition members who did vote for the bill to proceed have come out and said the move did not signal their endorsement of the legislation. The letter from the Pride societies said that Ian Paton, for example, told the organizations he voted for it to proceed so he could explicitly condemn it.

Nevertheless, Long described the bill making it to first reading as “crazy” when speaking to CTV News.

Although the bill to repeal the code would have wide-ranging impacts, Long noted Armstrong’s public comments in the immediate aftermath of the Tumbler Ridge mass school shooting as an example of how she has set out to vilify members of 2SLGBTQ+ community by spreading misinformation about an “epidemic of transgender violence.”

Armstrong circulated this claim before the RCMP identified the shooter, and before authorities had even accurately reported the number of people killed.

Armstrong, when asked about her comments on the shooting, said she “loves everybody” and is “not hateful toward anybody.”

The combination of Armstrong’s comments after the tragedy and the move to try to repeal the Human Rights Code were what spurred the Pride groups to publicly call for her censure and resignation.

“We have enough going on in the world right now in terms of discrimination and hatred,” Long said. “It’s not OK.”

With files from CTV News Vancouver’s St. John Alexander