VANCOUVER — British Columbia’s human rights commissioner says a lack of collaboration between the Vancouver Police Board and First Nations is hampering progress to end anti-Indigenous racism in policing, years after the handcuffing of a man and his granddaughter put a spotlight on the issue.
Maxwell Johnson of the Heiltsuk Nation and his then-12-year-old granddaughter were arrested in 2019 by Vancouver police after a bank manager reported them for trying to open an account using what they wrongly believed was a fake status card.
The B.C. Office of the Human Rights Commissioner says the settlement of Johnson’s complaint with the Vancouver Police Board included requirements for “collaborative action” needed to fix systemic issues of anti-Indigenous racism in policing.
The Commissioner’s final report released Tuesday says part of the settlement required collaboration between the board, the Heiltsuk Tribal Council and the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs, but the officers involved, constables Canon Wong and Mitchel Tong, have not attended an in-person “apology ceremony.”
The report says the ceremony is part of the Heiltsuk’s legal and cultural traditions, and the officers’ participation was a “crucial precondition” to the collaborative work detailed in the settlement agreement that was reached in 2022.
It says the parties are at an “impasse,” and while the board appears to have worked to improve police training on anti-Indigenous racism and cultural competency, it has not improved training on status-cards or “anti-racist responses” to such calls.
The handcuffing incident is also the subject of ongoing proceedings ordered by B.C.’s Police Complaint Commissioner, who appointed retired judge Wally Oppal to review evidence in the case last month.
The commissioner appointed Oppal to determine if Wong and Tong should be required to provide an oral apology “consistent with Indigenous law,” after they were found to have committed misconduct and ordered by a retired judge in March 2022 to provide oral apologies, but instead wrote their apologies.
Marilyn Slett, elected chief of the Heiltsuk Nation, said in a news release last month that “a culturally appropriate washing ceremony and apology, in person, is the proper requirement to help heal everyone impacted by this incident, including the constables themselves.”
Slett said the officers backed out of a ceremony in Bella Bella, B.C., in 2022, but the president of the Vancouver Police Union at the time said the constables were not able to attend “for personal reasons.
The Vancouver Police Board and the Heiltsuk Tribal Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Human Rights Commissioner’s final review.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 24, 2026.
The Canadian Press
