“With each enquiry and complaint, it’s our job to determine whether the public authority has acted fairly. And when we find that a public body has acted unfairly, we identify steps it can take to remedy the unfairness found”, says BC Ombudsperson, Jay Chalke.

The newly released BC Ombudsperson’s Annual Report draws attention to the almost 7,000 enquiries and complaints raised about public bodies in the province during the April 2023 and March 2024 reporting period, and benefits to the public resulting from these enquiries and complaints. Specific examples cited in the press release include:

• A complaint about the administration of BC’s Affordable Child Care Benefit which led to the Ministry of Education and Child Care agreeing to pay more than $800,000 to over 3,000 families to remedy past underpayments
• A complaint regarding the government’s cost-of-living credit from BC Hydro not being paid to customers which resulted in BC Hydro committing to provide the credit to other hydro customers who had also been affected by missing credits

The BC Ombudsman 2023-24 Annual Report is available online here: ihttps://bcombudsperson.ca/assets/media/OMB_AR_2023-2024_WEB.pdf

Details included in this post were gleaned from a September 19, 2024 press release.