Canada | Ombudsperson’s Annual Report highlights how one complaint about public services can benefit many British Columbians

BC Ombudsperson, Jay Chalke, released his office’s 2023/24 Annual Report on 19 September 2024. The report highlights the work of his office, under the Ombudsperson Act and Public Interest Disclosure Act, to improve public administration across BC’s public sector.

“Each year our office helps thousands of British Columbians,” said Chalke. “With each enquiry and complaint, it’s our job to determine whether the public authority has acted fairly. And when we find that a public body has acted unfairly, we identify steps it can take to remedy the unfairness found. I’m heartened that people from across the province continue to reach out to us, to trust our office with their complaints about public services.”

Often a single complaint about a public body can benefit many. The Annual Report identifies many such outcomes including:

• A complaint about BC’s Affordable Child Care Benefit and how it was administered resulted in the Ministry of Education and Child Care agreeing to pay more than $800,000 to over 3,000 families to remedy past underpayments.
  
  
• An investigation into a complaint about a Northern Health-operated long-term care facility determined that the health authority failed to report a sexual assault to the Ministry of Health as required under BC’s Hospital Act. The investigation also reiterated the negative impacts of having two different laws for long-term care, a problematic distinction we have previously identified. As a result of our investigation, Northern Health changed its policies to better protect all residents in Hospital Act facilities.
  
  
• A complaint that BC Hydro had not paid the government’s cost-of-living credit to a hydro customer resulted in the missing credit being paid to the customer and BC Hydro committing to provide the credit to other hydro customers similarly affected by such missing credits.

“These outcomes reinforce that when we find unfairness has occurred in one situation, we seek to identify whether there are systemic problems – and thus systemic remedies – to ensure all people are treated fairly,” said Chalke. “In such cases, the impact of a single complaint can be exponential.”

Between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024, the office received nearly 7,000 complaints and enquiries. The top three most complained about public authorities this year were ICBC, the Ministry of Children and Family Development and the Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction.

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Source: Ombudsperson British Columbia, Canada