Pivot and BCCLA write pursuant to s. 172(2)(a) of BC’s Police Act, requesting the OPCC’s review of the Vancouver Police Board’s inaction with respect to service and policy complaint (#2024-26600) as required under s. 171 of the Act. We urge the OPCC to implement its own independent investigation into the systemic causes of the use of force complaint!

PRESS RELEASE - Pivot and BCCLA request BC’s Police Complaint Commissioner’s review of Police Board inaction with respect to VPD’s use of force in Palestine protest

NOTE: As of today, Jan. 31, 2026, it is once again illegal in BC to possess any amount of illegal drug(s) under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act. This includes private residences. Sanctioned supervised consumption sites and overdose prevention sites will continue to be the only decriminalized spaces in which to possess and consume drugs, though traveling to these sites while in possession of drugs intended to be used there risks criminalization.

A Street Guide for Your Rights & Responsibilities as a Tenant in SRO & Supportive Housing.

In May 2025, Pivot Legal Society (“Pivot”), alongside several public interest groups intervened in Dorsey v Canada (Attorney General), 2025 SCC 38. Dorsey was an appeal brought by prisoners which affirms access to habeas corpus to challenge continued unlawful confinement in more restrictive prisons and forms of confinement that deprive a person of their liberty.

The City of Vancouver recently approved a temporary Bylaw in the lead up to the FIFA games in summer 2026. The Bylaw imposes sweeping restrictions, which the City promises it won’t actually enforce to punish residents’ ordinary activities. But how can we be asked to rely on the City’s own goodwill, especially when it has done nothing to assuage fears that FIFA will follow the playbook of past mega events by perpetuating displacement, dispossession, and harm for Vancouver residents?

Join Pivot on November 4-5th, 2025 for a discussion on legal developments in sex work laws post SCC’s decision in R v. Kloubakov!

A 15-year journey through direct service, criminal defense, and refugee law, has now brought Randall Cohn to Pivot as Executive Director.

Social condition discrimination is a strain on public health and deadly for those who experience discrimination. Join us in calling on the BC government to add social condition as a protected characteristic under BC Human Rights Code.

These submissions highlight pervasive systemic racism against people of African descent within Canada's criminal justice system. Canada’s reliance on racialized use of force and segregation exacerbates systemic racism and social exclusion.

Pivot continues to push forward in our shared fight for dignity and human rights. Throughout the year, Pivot paired strategic litigation with bold movement-building, while also working to strengthen Pivot from the inside out. Thank you for your trust and work alongside us. Your support matters.

YOUR INFORMATION RIGHTS + MUNICIPAL POLICE DEPARTMENTS - If you experience an aggressive police encounter or are arrested and searched, what are your rights in accessing information police keep about you? This guide on how to access information about yourself from the police is borne out of on-the-ground experiences of folks engaged in direct, non-violent social justice actions, and is a collaborative project between the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) and Pivot.

At a time when 51% of Indigenous and Black people are being classified and confined to maximum-security prisons, the mass incarceration and hyper-securitization of Indigenous and Black peoples, under the pretext of public safety considerations, in Canada’s prison system remains a critical racial justice issue. In an order by the SCC’s first Indigenous judge, Justice O’Bonsawin, Pivot was granted leave to intervene at the Supreme Court of Canada in Frank Dorsey and Ghassan Salah v Attorney General of Canada.

Connecting the intersecting fields of social justice and public health by illustrating the undeniable link between the structural determinants of health and a person’s social condition on their quality of life.

On December 11, 2024, Pivot and BC Civil Liberties Association filed a request for review by the Police Complaint Commissioner pursuant to ss. 172 & 173 of BC’s Police Act, RSBC 1996, c. 367, relating to the Vancouver Police Board’s screening decisions of two Service and Policy Complaints filed in respect of VPD’s discriminate treatment of Palestinian solidarity protests.