Strengthening our Provincial & National Human Rights Mechanisms: Lessons from Alberta and CHRCR

Over the past two years, the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights (JHC) engaged in research that aimed to identify barriers experienced by people using the human rights complaint mechanisms at the provincial and federal level, and to propose tangible actions for strengthening the Alberta and Canadian Human Rights Commission and Tribunal. Informed by our work with Stride Advocacy, which helps community members draft human rights complaints and navigate available human rights mechanisms, there emerged a gap for claimants with access to justice and remedy. As part of the project, JHC conducted interviews with claimants and experts with specialized human rights knowledge to better understand the first-hand experience of engaging with the mechanism. The project resulted in two published research reports identifying barriers for users to engage with the remediation mechanism and recommendations to address them.

This session will present a summary of the barriers identified and recommendations developed through the research projects to strengthen the federal and provincial human rights mechanisms. It will also include time for participants to share feedback on the results from the research report and identify strategies to move the recommendations forward.
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Parveen Parmar is a lawyer and human rights advocate from Alberta passionate about social justice and access to justice. She is currently working as a human rights officer with the John Humphrey Centre for Peace and Human Rights with their Stride Advocacy program helping the public navigate human rights mechanisms, and has conducted research examining barriers at the Alberta and Canadian Human Rights Commissions. Previously, Parveen was a student-at-law at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, where she was called to the Bar of Ontario in 2021. She was selected in 2018 as a legal fellow for the Young Lawyers International Program, implemented by the Canadian Bar Association and Global Affairs Canada, which places lawyers and law graduates with various organizations around the world to work in the areas of human rights and development. She worked with the UN Women Programme Office and the Human Rights Team under the Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights in Belgrade, Serbia; the Arlington Human Rights Commission in the Washington, D.C. area, and with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Bangkok, Thailand.


Linda Mckay-Panos is the executive director of the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre. She taught Language Arts and Social Studies with the Calgary Board of Education for seven years before returning to university to obtaining her Juris Doctor and Master of Laws degree at the University of Calgary. She practiced law for a time, before joining the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre in 1992 as a research associate. Linda is a sessional instructor in the faculties of Law and Arts at the University of Calgary. Linda is the author of several publications dealing with civil liberties, access to information, human rights, discrimination, equality and related topics. Linda received the 2001 Suzanne Mah Award and an Alberta Centennial Medal in 2005 for her work in human rights in Alberta.

Robert A. Philp was previously the Chief of the Alberta Human Right Commission, a Provincial Court Judge, a respected lawyer, and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Alberta Faculty of Business. As a resident of Edmonton – City Centre for the last 24 years, Robert has held executive or board positions on numerous community organizations, including Boyle Street Community Services, Reach Edmonton, Edmonton Community Legal Center, Jellinek Men’s Recovery, HOPE Foundation Edmonton, and the Mayor’s Edmonton Task Force to End Poverty. Robert received the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal in 2003 and the Alberta Centennial Medal in 2005. In 2017, he received a Distinguished Service Award from the Alberta Branch of the Canadian Bar Association and the Alberta Law Society. He continues to be a mentor to many young lawyers and students and has several notable appointments to the Law Society Committees in Alberta, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut.