Reconciliation at ICBC

With this improved understanding, we’ll be able to make the kinds of changes that will improve how we work with Indigenous Peoples. We recognize the importance of this work and consider it a priority for fiscal year 2025, and in the years ahead. 

We acknowledge that we’re in the early days of our Reconciliation journey, and we have a lot of work ahead of us. We understand it is not a journey with a prescribed ending. Rather, our work will be an ongoing experience of learning and unlearning — and we are committed to these efforts. 

Our Reconciliation Action Plan    

ICBC's inaugural Reconciliation Action Plan was created in response to the recommendations provided by work that's come before, specifically The Road to Reconciliation discussion paper by the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) and Two Worlds Consulting's Reconciliation Framework Report .

We have also included new recommendations that support the delivery of this plan.

The Reconciliation Action Plan covers fiscal year 2024–25 and outlines our initial projects, objectives and timelines for the work we’re undertaking. It may evolve as we learn more and adjust our priority areas, and is intended to be a living document.

The Road to Reconciliation

In March 2021, the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) published its Road to Reconciliation discussion paper. The paper details the intersecting historical and contemporary challenges and barriers that Indigenous Peoples in British Columbia face when trying to obtain driver licences. 

These barriers include arranging for child or Elder care if travel to another community is required for testing; financial barriers with associated driver licensing fees and accessing ICBC services; limited or no access to the identification required to take a test; and vehicles, vehicle-related trauma and routes and locations reminiscent of residential school experiences, to name only a few examples. 

The Road to Reconciliation outlines several recommendations for ICBC, which you’ll see threaded into our goals and priorities. We are prioritizing their recommendations, and we extend our gratitude to UBCIC for their continued work advocating for First Nations in B.C. 

Two Worlds Consulting's Reconciliation framework 

We began working with Two Worlds Consulting, an Indigenous-owned consultancy, to develop our Reconciliation framework starting in 2022. Our goal was ultimately to align ICBC’s processes and practices to better serve Indigenous Peoples as customers and as community members.

While The Road to Reconciliation focused mainly on driver licensing services, the Reconciliation framework report includes recommendations across other ICBC services and departments, such as Claims and Human Resources.

Two Worlds Consulting's initial engagement involved voluntary surveys and interviews with:  

• Indigenous Nations 

• External Indigenous organizations 

• Members of ICBC’s board of directors 

• ICBC employees 

From this engagement, they developed their Reconciliation framework. The core component of the framework is 12 recommendations, grouped into four themes.

They cover how we’ll kick off our Reconciliation commitments, the strategies we need to implement to recruit, retain and promote Indigenous employees, service delivery improvements such as increased access to driver licensing and road testing and lastly, our ongoing commitments to Reconciliation at ICBC.  

Improving the ICBC experience for Indigenous customers  

We know we have a lot of work to do to improve the customer experience for Indigenous Peoples who access ICBC services. To make meaningful changes, we’ll undertake careful research about the experiences of Indigenous customers. We’ll be guided by Indigenous data sovereignty principles and take steps to ensure participants benefit from the research.  

We’ll also be looking at improving and increasing access to services like road testing in remote Indigenous communities, covering Indigenous health treatments for customers recovering after a crash and exploring how we can accommodate diacritics (the marks above, below, through and on top of letters) to identification documents like driver licences. 

ICBC’s relationship with Indigenous Peoples

By cultivating stronger relationships with First Nations, Inuit and Métis, we’ll be able to provide community members better access to services like knowledge testing.  

We’ve reached out to First Nations and Indigenous organizations and provided contact information for key contacts in ICBC's Driver Licensing, Recruiting, Road Safety and Indigenous Relations, to make working with us easier. We’ve also worked with several Indigenous communities on ways to make local roads safer. We look forward to increasing our engagement by sharing curated communications and community outreach, as well as incorporating more Indigenous partnership in our policies and programs. 

Watch our Respectful Acknowledgement pledge in partnership with the Lheidli T'enneh First Nation:

Supporting Indigenous employees at ICBC  

The Indigenous Employee Resource Group at ICBC leads internal and community efforts to celebrate Indigenous cultures, recognize important cultural events and supports moving ICBC’s Reconciliation efforts forward.  

In 2023, in partnership with MoveUP, ICBC introduced five days of paid leave for Indigenous employees to attend meaningful cultural events, such as powwows, potlatches and other ceremonies. We also expanded the definition of "family" to better support Indigenous employees accessing bereavement leave.

Looking forward, we’ll be exploring how to recruit, retain and promote Indigenous employees. We’ll also be rolling out cultural safety training for all ICBC employees, starting with frontline staff, to strengthen their own understanding and knowledge of Indigenous history.  

Helpful resources 

ICBC's Reconciliation efforts so far, the newly finalized Reconciliation Action Plan and our future efforts are all informed by previous efforts. Some include: 

• United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples 

• Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action 

• Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act (British Columbia)

• The Road to Reconciliation: UBCIC Discussion Paper on Driver Licensing 

We thank the authors and contributors for their valuable work.