Dear Local MLA, Attorney General David Eby, Premier John Horgan, Minister of Health Adrian Dix, Minister of Public Safety & Solicitor General Mike Farnworth,
I am writing to you about British Columbia’s woefully outdated wrongful death laws; which are still based on colonial era legislation from 1846.
BC’s current Family Compensation Act only takes into account the direct financial losses resulting from the wrongful death of a loved one. As a result, only the families of deceased breadwinners see the inside of a courtroom in cases of wrongful death.
Children, seniors, people with disabilities, or anyone who does not meet the discriminatory criteria of having both an income and dependents are classes of people whose lives are not valued or respected when they are killed in BC.
This is a human rights issue.
Investigations into the wrongful death of these classes of citizens most often do not occur because there is no ‘loss of earnings’ to cover civil trial costs.
Accordingly, families have been denied the ability to right the wrong and ensure that the same preventable actions which resulted in the wrongful death would not happen to another.
Unlike other provinces in Canada, which in most cases have modernized long ago, many of your constituents are considered “worthless” under the discriminatory law in British Columbia.
Their stories are actively being documented and published here – https://intheirname.ca/stories/
The BC Wrongful Death Law Reform Society is comprised of families who have been fighting for over two decades to see our laws modernized. They have drafted legislation that can solve this problem now.
What will you do to create a fair and adequate wrongful death law in BC?
Yours Truly,
Your Full Name
Your Address
cc: Interim Liberal Leader Shirley Bond, Liberal Critic for Attorney General Mike de Jong, Liberal Critic for Public Safety & Solicitor General Mike Morris, BC Greens Leader Sonia Furstenau