Proceedings in the

Douglas Fir Room

The House in Committee,

Section A.

The committee met at 11:42 a.m.

[George Anderson in the chair.]

Committee of the Whole

Bill 17 — Intimate Images Protection

Statutes Amendment Act, 2025

(continued)

The Chair : Good afternoon, Members. I call Committee of the Whole on Bill 17, Intimate Images

Protection Statutes Amendment Act, 2025, to order.

I’ll recognize the member for Langley–Walnut Grove on the amendment.

On the amendment.

Misty Van Popta : Going back to yesterday, the intent of the amendment was to make sure that training

of tribunal members is legislated and not left to policy or regulation. That was the

intent with this particular amendment.

Steve Kooner : Earlier in the debate, throughout this bill, I was talking about the expertise, getting

at how it can help people more that are potential victims and victims. A concern I

believe I brought forward was, what is the expertise of this particular CRT to deal

with these potential victims?

Now, if we’re giving it an enhanced way to deal with damages and bigger claims for

victims and potential victims, and since these types of cases are very sensitive in

nature, involving a lot of emotional issues of the victims going through this — the

CRT is geared towards the early stages — there needs to be a mechanism that these

arbitrators are skilled, are trained, that whoever is listening to the case or handling

the case is trained.

We have moved this amendment for that purpose. It talks about adding: “The chair,

vice-chairs and other members of the tribunal must, within six months of appointment,

successfully complete a specialized training course on trauma at a prescribed institution

in British Columbia.” That’s the addition there.

[11:45 a.m.]

Hon. Niki Sharma : I really do appreciate the spirit of this amendment, and I think we all share that

common goal to make sure that the people that are overseeing these types of hearings

have the right training. Unfortunately, as it’s written, we can’t support the amendment.

I’ll just go through it so people understand why.

First of all, the purpose of that specialized expertise language in that one provision

is primarily about setting a standard for judicial review of CRT decisions. That’s

a multi-layered, very complicated system that involves a definition in

section 1 of

the Civil Resolution Tribunal Act,

section 116 of the CRTA and

section 56.7 of the

CRTA. The objective of that particular

section is to set the right standard of review

for specific types of CRT cases where they are judicially reviewed. We are concerned

about changing anything in that particular

section having unintended consequences.

Just a couple things also about the wording of the amendment. The way it’s worded,

it has potential application to all tribunal members rather than only the ones handling

IIPA disputes, which is a subset.

In the absence of a transition provision, we don’t know what would happen to the current

tribunal members that may be in the middle of an application right now, holding an

application right now.

There’s no definition of “specialized training course” — difficult to define.

I think the six-month timeline is probably too long. They should probably have the

training before, which I think is what they do. Before they even hear one of these

cases, they have the training beforehand.

Just to give people a little more information of surety, the CRT chair has confirmed

that there is trauma training, trauma-informed practice, including, for example, completion

of a course from the Justice Institute of B.C. called “Trauma-Informed Practice Foundations.”

The tribunal members have also attended sessions with the Ministry of Children and

Family Development to receive training on the duty to report a child in need under

section 14 of Child, Family and Community Service Act.

There are certain things about independent tribunals and what we can clearly say in

legislation and what is something to be determined by arm’s length from a tribunal

that is meant to be different from a political and government body.

Those are the reasons that I can’t support the amendment but just to say that I appreciate

the spirit of it.

Hon. Chair, I move that the committee rise and report progress and ask leave to sit

again.

Motion approved.

The Chair : This committee stands adjourned.

The committee rose at 11:48 a.m.