Statement from the BC Provincial Committee, Communist Party of Canada, Feb. 3, 2025
On January 30, BC’s NDP government fired the Greater Victoria School Board (District 61), a move that was loudly cheered by the Conservative opposition. The government claims that the Board “endangered the safety of students” by cancelling the school police liaison officer (SLO) program, allowing cops in public schools only in emergencies.
The Board decided to end the program in 2022 on the basis of a report by the BC Office of the Human Rights Commissioner, “The state of school liaison programs in Canada.” While the Human Rights Commissioner, Kasari Govender, acknowledged that more studies need to be carried out to assess the impact of SLOs on students in Canada, studies in the United States have found that “SLOs contribute to a sense of criminalization and surveillance in schools, especially disadvantaging marginalized students.” Govender went on to “strongly recommend that all school districts end the use of SLOs until the impact of these programs can be established empirically.”
The Board’s seven trustees were elected with strong support of voters and the labour movement in October 2022, defeating a well-organized push by far-right movements trying to whip up bigotry against SOGI-123, the province;s policy on sex and gender identity education. This was one of the most progressive school boards in British Columbia, and the trustees had been supported by many NDP members. The firing was a shock to the government’s political base, sending a shiver of fear through Indigenous and Black families, and the queer community, which is also targetted by far-right groups.
This decision is the latest conscious retreat by NDP Premier David Eby and his cabinet in the face of fear mongering around policing and public health issues. The Communist Party of BC, which warned against this dangerous shift before and during the October 2024 provincial election, condemns the firing as an appalling attack on democratic rights, and a shameful surrender to the mob mentality promoted by racist and fascist forces in British Columbia.
Giving the finger to the voters, Education Minister Lisa Beare has appointed a lone trustee to oversee the district. This is not the first BC government to remove elected trustees. In 1985, the big business Social Credit government of Bill Bennett did the same to the popular Vancouver COPE school board, which was overwhelmingly re-elected in a byelection. Liberal Premier Christy Clark fired another progressive Vancouver school board in 2016, claiming that the Board had failed to adopt a balanced budget (just a few hours before the trustees were to vote on that budget). On that occasion, the Premier also cited false claims about the conduct of Board meetings to justify her action.
In those cases (and a few others over recent decades), the firings were imposed by right-wing governments, to punish trustees who criticized underfunding of public education. This time, an NDP government has thrown progressive trustees overboard, to appease the manufactured outrage of reactionary forces.
The argument that the Victoria trustees should have conducted more consultations with First Nations and Indigenous peoples around the SLO issue is disingenuous, to say the least, considering that the government set totally unrealistic deadlines for such consultations to take place.
The original decision to cancel the SLO program followed direct consultations with those most affected by the presence of police in schools – Indigenous and racialized students and their families. After the US police murder of George Floyd in 2020, the NDP government was compelled to make promises about police reform. Those protests reflected deep anger over 160-plus years of racist police brutality against Indigenous peoples in BC.
The government struck a special committee to consult and make recommendations on improving policing. “Everyone deserves to be treated fairly by the police, and our government acknowledges that for many Black, Indigenous and other people of colour, that hasn’t always been the case,” said NDP Attorney-General Mike Farnworth.
Two years later, the Special Committee on Reforming the Police Act released 11 recommendations, including replacing the RCMP with a provincial force, a new approach to mental health calls, and giving First Nations self-determination over policing in their communities. The stated goal was to align the Police Act with BC’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act.
But this effort was quietly sidelined by Farnworth, a staunchly pro-cop politician. His actions were in line with a longstanding NDP tactic, combining some anti-racism moves while rejecting fundamental measures to confront the reality that in a capitalist society, the police are an armed apparatus of the state to protect the interests of the ruling class.
This has been true since colonial times, such as the hanging of six Tŝilhqot’in chiefs in 1864 and 1865 for the “crime” of armed resistance against violent encroachment by colonists on Indigenous territories and peoples. In 1995, NDP Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh called for the RCMP to evict Sun Dance participants from a ranch near Kamloops, culminating in the largest paramilitary action in Canadian history, as 400 police fired tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition. Under the current NDP government, special RCMP squads have been deployed against Indigenous land
defenders and environmental activists.
Trolling for votes before the 2024 campaign, the NDP reversed tentative moves to decriminalize drug possession by users, instead adopting “tough on crime” rhetoric. Consultations with Indigenous groups over policing reforms have been “paused”, and the Premier’s mandate letters to his new cabinet ministers dropped reference to such reforms.
The message is clear and ominous, especially in light of other developments, such as Premier Eby’s move to give corporate energy projects in northern BC a pass on environmental assessments. Having narrowly won last fall’s election, his government is making big concessions to the far right on “hot button” issues.
In the view of the Communist Party of BC, this shameful retreat will only embolden the Conservatives, who aim to use every dirty trick available to topple an NDP government with only a tenuous position in the Legislature. We urge the labour movement, Indigenous peoples, environmentalists, the 2SLGBTQ community, and all those who resist racism and fascism – condemn the firing of the Victoria School Board!