On February 13, 2026, Pivot Legal Society (Pivot) and the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) submitted a letter to BC’s Police Complaint Commissioner requesting a review of Vancouver Police Board's inaction with respect to VPD’s use of force in Palestine protest

Read the letter below and the joint press release.

Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner of British Columbia
5th floor, 947 Fort Street
PO Box 9895, Stn Prov Govt.
Victoria, BC  V8W 9T8

VIA EMAIL

February 13, 2026

Dear Police Complaint Commissioner Prabhu Rajan,

RE: Request for OPCC Review of Police Board Decisions - OPCC File # 2024-26600/Board File 2024-021

Overview

On behalf of Pivot Legal Society (“Pivot”) and the BC Civil Liberties Association (“BCCLA”), we write pursuant to s. 172(2)(a) of BC’s Police Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 367 (“the Act”) requesting the OPCC’s review of the Vancouver Police Board’s (“Police Board”) inaction with respect to service and policy complaint (#2024-26600) as required under s. 171 of the Act.^[1]

The service and policy complaint at issue (“the Use of Force or Demonstration Complaint”) deals with the Vancouver Police Department’s (VPD’s) violent clearing of a protest involving Palestinian, Indigenous, Arab, white, and racialized people expressing support of Palestinian human rights at a railway in Vancouver on May 31st, 2024. Nothing about the content, character, or form of that protest warrants removing it from constitutional protections. Yet, the VPD’s attempt to violently repress protected-protest activity that day, as well as institutional efforts by the Police Board to erect procedural barriers to shield municipal police from accountability under the Act, parallels broader patterns of impunity for policing violence in the wake of solidarity movements condemning Israel’s genocide of Indigenous Palestinians and violations of international law.^[2]

Background of the Complaint

As detailed in the complaint filed by Pivot and BCCLA, at least 100 members of the public gathered in Vancouver on May 31st, 2024, to commemorate the then 36 000 children, individuals, and families that were killed in Israel’s brutal attacks against Indigenous Palestinians. Individuals, including people wearing keffiyehs, were visibly targeted by the VPD who perceived them to be racialized as Palestinian, Indigenous, Arab, or otherwise expressing support for Palestinian human rights. On September 18, 2024, Pivot and BCCLA filed two service and policy complaints relating to excessive use of force and surveillance of protected-protest activity pursuant to s. 168 of the Act. In a letter to complainants dated November 14th, 2024, the Police Board resolved to defer the use of force complaint until the resolution of criminal matters affecting 13 accused persons. Separately, the surveillance complaint (#2024-26602) was concluded on July 9, 2025, following a VPD-directed investigation into those respective allegations.

We note that the criminal matters on which the resolution of the use of force complaint hinged have now concluded. Yet the Police Board now asserts that this complaint is closed without having dealt with the material issues identified in this matter.

With no further communication expected from the Police Board, we request that the OPCC use its powers to review the Police Board’s inaction with respect to the use of force complaint in line with its statutory powers under the Act. For the reasons set out below, we seek the following:

• That the OPCC exercise its authority pursuant to s. 171(2) of the Act recommending that the Board initiate an independent investigation into this complaint. The underlying criminal matters have now concluded, and accordingly, the OPCC should direct the Police Board to re-open and promptly resolve the matter pursuant to its obligations under s. 171 of the Act; in this vein, we have included below a list of human rights experts with requisite expertise in use of force issues;
  
  
• In the event that the OPCC does not recommend that the matter be referred to the Police Board for determination, that it use its own discretion pursuant to s. 177.01 of the Act to investigate the VPD’s use of force as a systemic cause of this complaint;
  
  
• That the OPCC provide a clear statement condemning the discriminate treatment and use of force against members of the public, including individuals and protected groups, unfairly targeted and detained while exercising Charter-protected rights.

Systemic Governance Failures in the Board’s Handling of Service or Policy Complaints

Before addressing the particular deficiencies in the Police Board’s handling of the Use of Force Complaint, it is necessary to first identify broader concerns regarding the Police Board’s governance of service and policy complaints. including its continuing failure to implement binding oversight standards aimed at safeguarding equality, non-discrimination, and the integrity of the civilian oversight process governing complaints against police.

As you know, the Police Board’s contradictory communications regarding complaint #2024-26600, together with its blocking of Pivot Legal Society as a delegation when the complaint was first considered at the public police board meeting on October 31st, 2024, raise substantial concerns regarding procedural fairness, transparency, and the meaningful participation of complainants in an adjudicative process under s. 171 of the Act.^[3] The Police Board’s approach suggests a pattern of restricting complainant participation while simultaneously failing to provide clear, intelligible, and consistent reasons for its decisions.

The issues raised are reinforced by prior independent findings. For instance, the 2021 independent review into the Police Board’s service and policy complaint process relating to street checks identified structural weaknesses in their governance framework, including concerns regarding the Police Board’s independence from the police department and the need for stronger oversight capacity and clearer procedures governing service and policy complaints.^[4] The review emphasized that police boards must exercise independent, transparent, and procedurally robust oversight when responding to systemic or policy-level complaints, particularly where allegations engage public confidence, discrimination, or the potential misuse of police authority.^[5] There remains little evidence that the Board has meaningfully implemented any of the recommended reforms.

Further, BC’s Police Act expressly imposes obligations on police boards to have written policies about responding to service and policy complaints, this would include complaints involving discriminatory and biased policing.^[6] Where a police board fails to align its written policies, decision-making processes, or oversight practices with binding provincial standards—particularly those governing unbiased policing and the handling of service and policy complaints—it raises a serious issue of statutory non-compliance and legality. The OPCC has itself documented concerns regarding non-compliance by both the Vancouver Police Department and the Police Board with respect to BC’s Unbiased Policing Standards.^[7] To date, the Police Board’s publicly available policies relating to service and policy complaints are outdated and do not reflect their statutory obligations.^[8] The absence of demonstrable compliance raises serious concerns regarding whether the Police Board is meeting its statutory duty to provide independent, fair, and standards-compliant oversight of police conduct.

Viewed in this broader governance context, the Board’s handling of complaint #2024-26600 cannot be understood as an isolated procedural irregularity, but rather as part of a continuing pattern of deficient independence, inadequate procedural safeguards, and apparent non-compliance with current laws and associated policing standards.

The Police Board’s procedural mishandling of the use of force complain

Were a reviewing court tasked with the underlying administrative decision, (in this case, the Police Board’s decision to close the use of force complaint before dealing with it at all), it would consider justification, transparency and intelligibility, having regard to the particular factual and legal constraints that bear on its decision.^[9] It is not clear given the totality of the circumstances that a reviewing court would consider the decision to close the complaint without addressing it under s.171 of the Act, as reasonable.

Nothing in the Police Board’s reasons and concluding letter of July 9, 2025, nor in the OPCC’s letter dated October 19th, 2025, demonstrates that it ever considered the merits of the use of force complaint. The Police Board cannot then use a parallel, criminal proceeding, which has now concluded, to shield the VPD from accountability for legitimate claims concerning use of force in contravention of its own policies. Indeed, in this context, the OPCC has discretion to either implement its own arms-length investigation over the systemic-level aspects of this use of force complaint or direct the Police Board to resume the complaints process and return the matter for determination under s. 171 of the Act.

The Police Board’s inaction, and subsequent decision to close the use of force complaint, is particularly egregious given that its review of service and policy complaints are in the nature of an adjudicative function that attracts more procedural safeguards as compared to decisions that are purely part of its legislative function.^[10] While the Act, is silent on the specific notice requirements owed to complainants on matters held in abeyance, the Act reflects remedial provisions codified to ensure police accountability, and at common law there are procedural fairness requirements. At minimum, the Police Board would have reasonably been expected to notify both Pivot and BCCLA as complainants that #2024-26600 was no longer being held in abeyance; that there were no longer any concerns regarding protecting the integrity of the criminal matters; and that the complaint would be back before the Police Board for determination under s. 171 of the Act.

The OPCC has discretion to investigate the systemic aspects of the use of force complaint

In the event that the OPCC exercises its discretion to investigate this complaint itself, or through arm’s length investigation, which is the approach we would recommend given the above noted mishandling of the complaint, we set out the following reasons for inquiring into the systemic-level aspects of the VPD’s use of force in the context of protected-protest activity:

Centrally, the public is entitled to know the circumstances in which the police engaged them violently in what was otherwise legitimate Charter-protected activity. As described in the complaint, people exercising their constitutionally protected-rights to dissent from Canada’s complicity in Israel’s ongoing occupation of Gaza – is expressive activity, and, when white, Arab, Indigenous, racialized, elders, and young people gather in assembly with one another, they are entitled to reassurance that the state will not discriminately target or detain them for their political expression, or, for their race, religion, or ethnic origin. Indeed police discretion, including in the context of investigative detention, cannot be based on protected grounds, nor can it be based on religious or racist assumptions about an arrestee or detainee.^[11] Canadian courts have already recognized the dangers that racialized communities face when interacting with police: heightened risks of policing violence, higher scrutiny and surveillance in street-level policing and arrests, and racial profiling in the context of investigative detention - often lead to Charter-infringing police conduct.^[12] Yet, none of these material issues were tangentially, or substantively raised or addressed in the VPD-led investigation that pertained to the surveillance complaint, nor did the Police Board’s investigator have authority to engage in such, without a clear decision pursuant to s. 171(1)(c) of the Act directing it to do so.

Second, it is critical that the OPCC investigate whether or not the police exceeded their discretion in violently stopping, targeting, and detaining members of the public.^[13] Police discretion is not absolute, and, ultimately, police must justify their decisions both subjectively, on the basis of legitimate, reasonable grounds, and objectively, with a view to the material circumstances in which that discretion was exercised.^[14] BCCLA and Pivot are aware of reports of the VPD deploying military-grade tear gas, punching a pregnant Palestinian person, grabbing elders from public sidewalks, strangling a person to the point of them requiring medical attention, and placing knees on necks, while standing on the backs of cuffed citizens. The egregious nature of VPD’s physical force deployed in clearing the protest, on its face, should form the basis of systemic review of the VPD’s use of force in protest activity.

In this vein, it is critical that the OPCC assuage concerns that the VPD’s use of force was at all justified in the circumstances, which arguably was in the absence of reasonable and probable grounds to detain. Even where police believe they have reasonable grounds to detain, if racial stereotypes are relied on “to any degree in suspect selection or subject treatment” the officer’s discretion would not be reasonable.^[15] As described in the use of force complaint, the decision for the VPD to detain and use force against people wearing keffiyehs, effectively as a proxy for race, ethnic origin and religion, calls into question whether police had reasonable grounds to detain, and by extension, whether using force was justified. As the Supreme Court of Canada has established in elucidating an officer’s responsibility with respect to use of force: “[P]olice officers cannot rely on s. 25(1) [of the Criminal Code] to justify the use of force if they had no legal authority – either under legislation or at common law – for their actions.”^[16] Arguably, there should be clear prohibitions against police use of force in any capacity but, particularly in respect of protected-protest activity.

Third, the Police Board’s procedural blocking of the complaints process in respect of the use of force allegations merely emboldens the police to be at worst indifferent, and at best hostile, to the expressive rights at issue.^[17] Police repression ultimately has a profoundly chilling effect on otherwise protected expressive activity. Given that nothing about the method or location of the protest removes it from constitutional protections,^[18] it is not clear that vague public safety considerations or speculative concerns about the disruption of essential goods^[19] (i.e., via railway blockade) hold firm when we consider the recent jurisprudence on freedom of expression by the courts. Canada’s Federal Court of Appeal has recently commented on the scope of peaceful expression rights in the context of protest blockades in its 2026 decision, Canada (AG) v. Canadian Civil Liberties Association.^[20] The FCA specifically cautioned that expanding the interpretation of “serious violence” to include property blockades, is “unwarranted and unreasonable”, as “it could stifle all kinds of protests and demonstrations that blockade pipelines, nuclear plants, railway lines, and other kinds of infrastructure to advance a cause.”^[21]

Conclusion

Given that the OPCC has a clear oversight mandate over police complaints and investigations, we urge the OPCC to use its statutory discretion pursuant to s. 177.01 of the Act to implement its own investigation over the systemic causes of this complaint. The Police Board’s inaction with respect to the use of force complaint risks reinforcing the public perception that police can lawfully enact violence against the public with impunity, and that police boards entrusted with oversight are structurally flawed and biased in favour of shielding police from scrutiny and public accountability. This distorts and undermines the very purpose of the OPCC’s mandate over accountability for police abuse in the context of their public duties.

Further, police complaints are intended to remedy crises in public confidence, so the public is not only entitled to guarantees that the police are acting within the scope of their powers, but it is critical for the administration of justice that the process be open, transparent, and meaningfully accessible to them. In this vein, we expect that the OPCC will ensure baseline procedural safeguards for complainants in the service and policy process, including regular and ongoing notice and status reports to complainants; clear anti-retaliation and confidentiality protections for affected members of the public to appropriately participate and provide input throughout the process if they so choose, clear barriers between the public body being investigated, and clear terms of reference delineating the investigator and scope of the inquiry into the material issues at stake.

As noted above, Pivot and BCCLA have compiled the below noted list of human rights experts with the requisite expertise in free expression and use of force issues. The proposed investigators include:

1. Former Chief Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, Birju Dattani
2. Scot Wortley, Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, University of Toronto
3. Akwasi Owusu-Bempah, Associate Professor, University of Toronto 4. Faisal Bhabha, Associate Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School

We would appreciate the courtesy of a response ideally within 20 days of receipt of this letter. We welcome questions or further discussion regarding any of the above-noted issues.

Sincerely,

Meghan McDermott, Policy Director
British Columbia Civil Liberties Association
[email protected]

Simone Akyianu, Staff Lawyer
Pivot Legal Society
[email protected]

cc:       Vancouver Police Board - [email protected]

^[1] Police Act, RSBC 1996, c. 367, s 171 [“Police Act”].

^[2] See for instance, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Thematic Report: Indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks during the conflict in Gaza (October – December 2023), available online: A/ HRC/ 58/28; Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Update Report: Six month update report on the human rights situation in Gaza: 1 November 2023 to 30 April 2024, available online: A/HRC.

^[3] Police Act, supra note 1, s 171.

^[4] David Loukidelis, Review of the Vancouver Police Board’s Street Checks Complaint Process (2021).

^[5] Ibid at 49: “At the other end are complaints such as that underlying this report, i.e., complaints that raise significant societal issues relating to the use of state power, such as concerns about discrimination in the exercise of power and about the treatment of communities of diversity. A nuanced policy setting out factors for the Board to consider would enhance public trust and confidence in its governance and oversight of the [Vancouver Police] Department”.

^[6] See for instance, Provincial Policing Standard 6.1.1(21) requires that the Board ensure written policy governing the response to service and policy complaints requires consideration of whether a complaint raises allegations of discriminatory policies or practices when determining the appropriate course of action under s. 171(1) of the Police Act.

^[7] Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner, Annual Report - 2023-2024 at 40: the OPCC notes public concerns regarding compliance with BC’s Provincial Policing Standard Section 6 (Promotion of Unbiased Policing) in relation to police interactions with individuals from marginalized groups, including Indigenous women, racialized minorities, and persons with disabilities.

^[8] Vancouver Police Board, Service and Policy Complaint Review Standing Committee – Terms of Reference, (2020).

^[9] Canada (Minister of Citizenship and Immigration) v Vavilov, 2019 SCC 65 at para 99 [“Vavilov”]. See also Wilding v Salt Spring Island Local Trust Committee, 2026 BCSC 88 at para 58.

^[10] Vavilov, supra note 9 at para 88.

^[11] R v Beaudry, 2007 SCC 5 at para 38 [“Beaudry”]; R v Mann, 2004 SCC 52 at paras 34-35 [“R v Mann”]; see also Fleming v. Ontario, 2019 SCC 45 [“Fleming”].

^[12] R v Le, 2019 SCC 34 at paras 145 & 147 [“R v Le”].

^[13] Pivot and BCCLA, Service and Policy Complaint regarding the Vancouver Police Department’s Excessive at a Palestine Solidarity Event on May 31st 2024 (2024).

^[14] Beaudry, supra note 11 at paras 37-39.

^[15] R v Le, supra note 12 at para 76. See also R v Dudhi, 2019 ONCA 665 at paras 59-63.

^[16] Fleming, supra note 11, at paras 115-117.

^[17] Canada v CCLA, (Attorney General) v Canadian Civil Liberties Association, 2026 FCA 6 at para 208 [“Canada v CCLA” ].

^[18] Figueiras v Toronto (Police Services Board), 2015 ONCA 208; Irwin Toy Ltd v Quebec (Attorney General), [1989] 1 SCR 927, at 978.

^[19] Canada v CCLA, supra note 17 at para 209.

^[20] Ibid at para 208.

^[21] Ibid.

Download the complaint