The Evolution of a Technologyenhanced Justice System that Works for Everyone

Iam so honoured to be BC’s Attorney General and work alongside all the dedicated legal professionals who help people everyday in their time of need.

By connecting people to justice services, BC Notaries are helping people build the life they want for themselves and their families. Notaries’ expertise, advice, and dedication are making our province more equitable, fair, and just for everyone.

Before I entered politics, I helped clients fight to access their fundamental liberties. I specialized in representing Indigenous Peoples, focusing on rights and title, negotiations, First Nations’ governance, environmental conservation, and residential school settlements. I learned a lot from residential school survivors who demonstrated exceptional courage and resilience in reliving their traumas to pursue legal claims against the federal government and churches.

I heard, every day, how the justice system worked both for and against people. Witnessing our institutional systems foster inequity, whether inadvertently or intentionally, I learned government has an important role in repairing those fissures. We have a responsibility to recognize and remove the systemic barriers holding people back and to make it easier for everyone to access the justice they need to reach their full potential.

Increasing Access to Justice through Technology

We learned many lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Court system was no different. While the pandemic brought many things to a standstill, access to justice wasn’t one of them.

The pandemic public health restrictions provided an opportunity for Court staff to make significant technology upgrades to ensure people could continue to safely access the justice services they needed. Changes like moving more Court forms online, implementing more virtual hearing technology, recognizing electronic Wills, and improving Internet services, including public access Wi-Fi were greatly needed and helped level the playing field for people needing Court services in communities across the province.

The pandemic public health restrictions provided an opportunity for Court staff to make significant technology upgrades...

To support timely, effective bail hearings that protect the public and meet constitutional obligations, the Province recently expanded virtual bail hearings. That initiative allows accused people to attend bail hearings in their home communities instead of travelling to a bigger centre where they are disconnected from family and community supports.

I see my job as Attorney General as making sure our justice system—and everyone working within it— has the tools to help more people. That includes using technology to meet the needs of people today.

Work is also underway to modernize how families engage the legal system during times of separation and divorce. By creating online fillable forms for matters such as parenting arrangements, child support, and guardianship arrangements, Family Court Order applications can be processed more efficiently. Virtual supports are also being expanded, so families in need can access family justice counsellors wherever they are in the province.

That’s not the only work being done to modernize our justice system with the help of technology. Everyone deserves equitable access to justice, but Indigenous Peoples continue to be overrepresented in the criminal justice system, due to long-standing systemic racism and the impacts of intergenerational trauma. The Virtual Indigenous Justice Centre, in addition to three in-person centres located in Merritt, Prince George, and Prince Rupert, provides free, holistic, and culturally appropriate legal services for Indigenous clients living in underserved areas of the province where legal advice or representation is difficult to access. Another 10 physical centres are slated to open over the next 2 years, helping Indigenous Peoples address the root causes of their involvement in the justice system and build a better life for themselves.

Ensuring Our Systems Remain Fair in an Increasingly Online World

We’ve also seen technology used for nefarious purposes, which is why we need to make sure our systems stay adaptive to an increasingly digital world.

We’ve all heard about the reports of electoral interference threatening democracies around the world. Those revelations are very concerning. In BC, we’re taking steps to mitigate disinformation and support integrity, fairness, and transparency in our provincial elections.

Since BC’s Election Act was designed at a time when the Internet was not widely used, there’s been a growing need to amend the Act to address online political campaigns and election advertising. That’s why, based on recommendations from BC’s Chief Electoral Officer, we’re amending the Act to enhance how we combat disinformation, increase transparency, and strengthen third-party advertising rules in the electoral process.

During the 2020 Provincial General Election we saw an unprecedented number of advance and mail-in ballots. That was the first election in which more people voted at advance voting locations or by mail than on general voting day in BC. The proposed changes will also make votingby-mail and confirmation of ballots more efficient and accessible for people by removing the requirement for a witness declaration, improving the identity verification process, and making it easier to drop off ballots.

Protecting People from Online Harms

Technology also helped people connect personally during the pandemic and many spent more time online as a result. In 2020, Statistics Canada reported an 80 per cent increase in incidents reported to police of nonconsensual sharing of intimate images across the country compared to the previous 5 years. And we know those incidents are often unreported due to stigma, embarrassment, and a prevailing presumption there’s

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In March, I was honoured to introduce the Intimate Images Protection Act to better protect people from the harmful effects of having their intimate images shared without their consent. The legislation also provides a clear legislated avenue for civil actions to seek monetary damages for harms suffered.

The legislation is the result of in-depth consultations led by former Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity, Grace Lore. We heard loud and clear that people wanted a civil avenue to get their images offline as quickly and easily as possible. The process will be different from the existing criminal Court process that can have traumatizing affects on victims.

The legislation covers intimate images, near-nude images, videos, livestreams, and digitally altered images including videos known as “deepfakes.” It will create a new, fast-track process for getting a legal decision that an intimate image was recorded or distributed without consent and ordering people to stop distributing or threatening to distribute it.

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When it comes into force, the legislation will provide recourse for all people in BC, including minors and the families of deceased individuals to pursue legal action to stop the distribution of their private images. It will also offer a clearer legal avenue for lawsuits to seek monetary damages for harms suffered. To support the legislation, the Civil Resolution Tribunal will expand its online portal to help people define their legal issues, provide information on their rights, access immediate self-help tools to begin remedial action, and connect to community and mental-health supports.

We know that victims of sexualized violence not only need access to justice, but also access to supports; the legislation is victim- and trauma-informed and is one part of the work we’re doing across government to address gender-based violence.

I’m proud of the recent advances we’ve made to improve access to justice and look forward to carrying on that important work with you. I want to thank everyone who works within the justice system for everything you do to help people through what are often very challenging times.

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