What is the B.C. Civil Liberties Association?
The B.C. Civil Liberties Association is the oldest and most active civil liberties group in Canada. The organization is comprised of a group of citizens who volunteer their energy and talents to fulfill the BCCLA mandate: to preserve, defend, maintain and extend civil liberties and human rights in British Columbia and across Canada.
The BCCLA is a non-partisan, autonomous and charitable society.
Civil liberties are the rights and freedoms that all citizens enjoy in a democratic society. Citizens in a democracy are sovereign and the state (the Government) is the instrument we use to govern ourselves. Our rights and freedoms flow from our sovereign status, and from the fact that we are subject to the laws we enact to regulate our own behaviour.
In a democracy, civil liberties may be threatened not only by the state, but also by powerful private organizations and employers. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association works to protect citizens from both government and the private sector.
Some of the key issues that the BCCLA works on are:
• privacy and access to information
• freedom of speech
• freedom of association
• discrimination
• due process
• police rights and responsibilities
• administrative decision-making
• patient's rights
• prisoner's rights
• children's rights
• private offences
• political rights