News

We put forth Freedom of Information Act requests to the Ministry of Attorney General, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Finance, and the Office of the Premier in 2023.

Finally, after nearly 3 years, and 2 Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) complaints we have now obtained the final set of heavily redacted records as of June 12, 2026.

Things are bleak – the BC NDP failed to modernize BC’s wrongful death laws as promised within their last mandate of government – the records speak to these promises that were broken in documented format.

We believe the prolonged multi-year delays were politically strategic to ensure we would not receive any responsive records prior to the last 2024 BC provincial election. The political goal was likely to prevent us from educating our membership and the public about how badly the BC NDP and the BC provincial government are dropping the ball on this critical human rights issue.

Noteworthy, the records received have mischaracterized our Society as being “founded by legal groups”, when in fact we were founded by families dating back to 2005 as the Wrongful Death Law Reform Working Group prior to our Society’s later incorporation in 2015. We have never had any official affiliation to any legal groups. They have misstated the origin of our Society’s drafted Wrongful Death Accountability Act (WDAA) legislation attributing it to the Trial Lawyer’s Association of BC (TLABC) based on “US statutes”. This is completely false – the TLABC had no involvement in the drafting of this current legislation – these legislative reforms were family driven consultative amendments backed by cross-Canada legislative research by law students with oversight by volunteer legal experts. We simply picked the best aspects of each province’s wrongful death acts and incorporated it into one strong piece of proposed BC legislation to provide protections and ensure wrongdoers cannot escape accountability.

The Ministry of Attorney General has also conducted improper and incomplete legislative research, which we have further outlined in the attached PDF documents below in this article. They really got a lot wrong – their research doesn’t include the most recent case law precedents for damages in some of the provinces and they weren’t even aware that Yukon already modernized in 2014 according to their own comparison table documentation. At present there appears to be no movement in government on this file.

Our first OIPC complaint was against the Ministry of Attorney General who were holding the records hostage wanting nearly a $2,000 ransom. Upon the complaint moving to inquiry, this Ministry backed down their position and turned over the heavily redacted records.

Our second OIPC complaint is against the Ministry of Health who were withholding the records in their entirety. Finally, when the matter proceeded to inquiry in June 2026, the Ministry of Attorney General turned over heavily redacted records on behalf of the Ministry of Health. Notwithstanding, we have chosen to proceed with the inquiry to challenge the heavy redactions.

Furthermore, the Ministry of Health and Ministry of Attorney General are gaslighting in their OIPC response materials claiming they turned over the MOH records in February of 2025. However, an independent investigation by the OIPC conducted in September 2025 confirmed that this was in fact false – even the OIPC had been refused the records by MOH and MAG. We only and finally received a heavily redacted document package in June of 2026. As of the publishing of this post, the matter is still ongoing and our challenge of the redacted documents still stand.

Check out the PDF documents below to see all of the Freedom of Information Act request packages from the Ministry of Attorney General, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Finance, and the Office of the Premier, the OIPC response materials, our outline of how the BC provincial government has mischaracterized our Society, and how they have dropped the ball in their legislative research.

The below reference documents for public release are as follows:

1. Office of the Premier records on the wrongful death law reform file

2. Ministry of Finance records on the wrongful death law reform file

3. Ministry of Attorney General records on the wrongful death law reform file

4. Ministry of Health records on the wrongful death law reform file

5. Ministry of Attorney General OIPC inquiry response on behalf of the Ministry of Health

6. The BC Wrongful Death Law Reform Society OIPC inquiry response to MAG and MOH

7. Document outlining the mischaracterization of our Society found in the records

8. Document outlining improper and incomplete legislative research conducted by the Ministry of Attorney General

The contents of the Freedom of Information releases from each of the Ministries are below:

The Office of the Premier:

The Ministry of Finance:

The Ministry of Attorney General:

The Ministry of Health:

We have an inquiry still ongoing with the OIPC against the Ministry of Health. The Ministry’s submission is as follows:

Our OIPC inquiry reply to the Ministry is as follows:

Document outlining the mischaracterization of our Society on internal government documents is as follows:

Document outlining the improper and incomplete wrongful death law reform legislative research conducted by the Ministry of Attorney General is as follows:

About the BC Wrongful Death Law Reform Society

‘In Their Name’ is the campaign of ‘The BC Wrongful Death Law Reform Society’ – a BC registered non-profit organization comprised of volunteer families who have lost a loved one to wrongful death in BC and were denied access to justice. In response to the biggest human rights issue facing the province today, our goal is to modernize British Columbia’s antiquated wrongful death legislation, which predates confederation (1846). Under current legislation, the value of a human life is measured only by the deceased’s future lost income, so long as they had dependents.

As a result of the province’s antiquated law, access to justice has been denied to the families of the wrongfully killed who do not meet this discriminatory criteria. This has affected especially vulnerable groups, namely children, seniors, the disabled, and anyone without dependents when they are killed by the negligent or intentional acts of another.

BC is presently the last of all the provinces, yet to have undertaken this critical legislative modernization to allow for dignity, value, and protections for all its citizens under the law.

When it’s ‘free’ to kill in BC, wrongdoers are not held accountable. This lack of general deterrence holds the province back in terms of incentivizing innovation of safety measures and protocols to prevent wrongful deaths in the first place.

Here’s How You Can Get Involved…

The Premier of British Columbia, David Eby, is responsible for the modernization of BC’s wrongful death laws. Our Society provided David Eby with the drafted ‘Wrongful Death Accountability Act’ when he was acting as the Attorney General for British Columbia for 6 years between 2017-2022. The new Attorney General, Niki Sharma, also shares responsibility as she is the Minister responsible for the ‘Family Compensation Act’ – the current guiding piece of legislation that the civil courts must follow in cases of wrongful death. Minister Sharma receives feedback from the regional ‘Members of the Legislative Assembly’ (MLAs) and follows orders from the Premier, David Eby, who is ultimately responsible for modernization.

Reform is presently at a standstill, as the BC NDP government does not presently view access to justice for the surviving family members of the wrongfully killed as a priority in this province. This is despite the fact that the families behind our Society have been fighting for modernization for over two decades. And despite the fact that all other provinces, including the Yukon, have already modernized in most cases long ago.

The only way to move this forward is by creating massive public awareness and outcry for legislative modernization. Only under the scrutiny of the public and the media will our politicians be forced to take this necessary, and long overdue action.

How many more people will need to die from the same preventable wrongful actions before our politicians will do their job?

#1 Kindly consider supporting the public awareness advertising efforts of our volunteer led Society by Donating Now »

#2 In less than 30 seconds, with our automated tool you can Petition Your Local MLA »

#3 Share this story with friends and family on social media.

#4 Follow us on social media to stay updated: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Instagram

We appreciate your support at this critical time!