The foundation of the Reconciliation Action Plan

UBCIC 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 discussion paper 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.

Image credit: Bayja Morgan-Banke, Toquaht, Nuu-chah-nulth Nation and Bonaparte Nation

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 community representatives

• External Indigenous organizations

• Members of ICBC’s board of directors

• ICBC employees (Indigenous and non-Indigenous)

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.

Helpful resources

ICBC's Reconciliation efforts so far, the 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)

We thank the authors and contributors for their valuable work.