On May 5th 2023, Pivot, alongside PACE Society, submitted a written brief to House of Commons Standing Committee on the Status of Women re: its study on human trafficking What we know? The harms that flow from police-led anti-trafficking efforts have detrimental impacts incl. increased criminalization for sex workers and migrant communities with intersecting identities, shaped by race, gender, disability, and citizenship status. For instance, sex work prohibitions, exacerbate barriers to status for migrant workers, which puts already criminalized, migrant communities at risk of various abuses and systemic oppression such as heightened surveillance, detention, arrest, and deportation.

Pivot has submitted feedback to the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction for the Ministry’s first five-year review of its poverty reduction strategy for BC. A community consultation with people who have lived and living experiences of poverty informed this submission and their top priorities are increasing social belonging through increased opportunities for peer work and civic and social engagement, finding new ways to fund poverty reduction by eliminating the criminalization of people living in poverty, enshrining the protection of people living in poverty in provincial law, and funding free and accessible public transit in metropolitan areas and especially in rural areas. #defundthepolice #socialconditionprotections #freeaccessibletransit #endthewaronthepoor #peerworkiswork

Protection of Communities and Exploited Persons Act (PCEPA) harms sex workers; the people it claims to protect. Pivot and PACE Society wrote to the Standing Committee and will be presenting today calling for a repeal to laws that criminalize sex workers.

Pivot Legal Society's written submissions to the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act contain 26 specific recommendations

Complaint to the Vancouver Police Board by Pivot Legal Society, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users and Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Society opposing VPD's new Neighbourhood Response Team

In December 2019, our counsel Dan Sheppard (of Goldblatt Partners LLP), will explain to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice how a refusal to permit effective access to prison needle exchange programs will disproportionately and unconstitutionally harm individuals along lines of sex, race, and “disability”—in particular, women, Indigenous people, and people who use drugs.

In December 2019, Pivot is intervening in the precedent setting case of R v Zora, an important case with far-reaching impacts on the people we serve.

The practice of "street check" lacks a basis in law and is disproportionately weaponized against racialized and low-income communities. This memo calls for a moratorium on street checks as the only alternative to reforms that risk legitimizing an overwhelmingly harmful and discriminatory practice.

As part of Pivot’s police accountability mandate we have been involved in many complaints filed with the Office of the Police Complaint Commissioner (OPCC). We have 3 central recommendations for the Special Committee to Review the Police Complaint Process