Author: kirchmeiervubc

The Hearing in this matter before Tribunalmember Amber Prince began last Monday, February 13, 2023. Clea Parfitt delivered the opening statement on behalf of the complainants, and counsel for UBC opted to wait to deliver the Respondent’s opening statement, which is a choice available for respondents before the BCHRT. Glynnis Kirchmeier was the first witness and was under direct examination all week. Monday, February 20 is a holiday and cross examination will begin on Tuesday, February 21.

It is not possible to provide any summaries of witness testimony at this time, since this blog is public-facing and other witnesses have access to it. As far as updating Class Members about the progress of the Hearing, I will provide brief check-ins about which persons have already testified. Counsel for both sides have already submitted several verbal Applications to Member Prince about various evidentiary (and other) issues. This is part of the reason why forward progress has been slow so far.

Persons planning to testify may attend the Hearing by telephone only after their testimony is complete. Anyone else who is interested in attending may join at any time and should review my earlier blog posts for instructions on how to join.

I am posting this to confirm that the Human Rights Hearing will be going forward this Monday, February 13, 2023, before Tribunalmember Amber Prince. The Hearing will cover witnesses and evidence regarding BOTH classes – the Mordvinov Class (concerning one alleged assailant/harasser, many of the facts of which are already public), and the General Class (concerning reports of many alleged harassers/assailants, the facts of which are not widely public in the same way the Mordvinov Class facts are).

There is not too much to share publicly about our preparations that differs from the last update. We have continued to prep witnesses. My own prep time was about 17 hours and I’m not quite done. The parties have exchanged witness lists. UBC declined to cooperate with the Joint Book of Documents after we provided our documents in January, we had a status conference with Tribunalmember Prince to discuss various issues.

I (Glynnis Kirchmeier) will be the first witness with about two days of direct testimony, and we have also scheduled Kaitlin Russell (who, like me, was not a victim of Mordvinov but was involved in reporting him to UBC) for the first week. Both of us are from the Mordvinov Class. With any luck, the two of us will fill in the vast majority of the chronological facts so that later Mordvinov witnesses can go much faster!

I have not made any decisions yet about how to update this blog during the Hearing (or if such a thing is even feasible given the other demands on my time) – but as always, I encourage folks with questions to reach out to me directly.

As noted previously, the Hearing is open to the public by telephone only, but it takes some effort to get permission to attend. I am copy-pasting instructions from an earlier blog post below.

Important! This Video Hearing is Public – But You Need to Request Access Ahead of Time, Preferably ASAP

Here is a link to the BCHRT’s instructions about how to attend the hearing. It is at the bottom of the “Covid-19 issues at the Tribunal” page on the website. I am going to copy-paste the instructions to join as they appear today on February 9, but please be sure to check the website directly in case the information changes. Additionally, I will note that in the past I have had to identify myself by name and any other individuals listening in to a public hearing each day that I attended. The public listening in must use the mute button, will only hear the proceedings, and is not allowed to make a recording, though handwritten notes, live tweets etc. are fine. The parties and the witnesses we call will be able to use the video functions.

Public Access to Hearings

The Tribunal recognizes the importance of having its hearings open to the public. Contact the Tribunal by email at BCHumanRightsTribunal@gov.bc.ca at least one week before the hearing to request dial in audio access (listen in only without video) at the presiding Member’s discretion.  The email you send us must:

1. Identify the hearing from the hearing schedule
2. Attach a completed and signed agreement to attend the virtual hearing that includes your name and the telephone number you will be dialing in with

Again there is a change in the start of the hearing date.

For reasons I won’t be able to get into here, the parties requested an adjournment of the start date of the Hearing to February 13, 2023, which was already scheduled. Yesterday, the Tribunal granted that request.

Meanwhile, we are continuing to prepare for hearing. We sent our “document sort” (these are the documents we wish to present in the Hearing, which are selected out of the larger group of documents both sides disclosed to each other) to UBC, along with a list of each one. UBC will then supplement with any additional it wants to add, update the list, and send it to the Tribunal. This helps everyone have a copy of the documents ahead of time and keeps things moving smoothly. We are also continuing witness prep and outreach to witnesses as we get the time to prep them.

If you wish to attend the Hearing, which is held by video, the public is able to do so, but you will need to get permission from the Tribunal. Please see my prior blog post for instructions on how to do that.