Recently, two leading experts, Dr. Lorne Foster and Dr. Les Jacobs, have just completed a ground-breaking report on an underexamined issue: how Indigenous individuals face a pervasive form of discrimination in retail and service settings, as a result of consumer racial profiling (CRP). While this report focuses on the frequent and damaging encounters that happen at such places as supermarkets, banks, and retail shops, it also provides important information for all “service” providers under s. 8 of the Human Rights Code, including colleges and health professionals.
Under the Health Professions and Occupations Act (HPOA), expected to come in force on April 1, 2026, colleges have express duties relating to discrimination. As was the case prior to the HPOA, colleges still have a duty to refrain from discrimination under the Human Rights Code, both as an “occupational association” (Code s. 14) and as providers of services customarily open to the public (Code s. 8). But further under the HPOA, Colleges must also take and promote anti-discrimination measures (HPOA s. 14(2)(c)), and protect the public from discrimination (HPOA s. 14(2)(a)), including in how they regulate licensees. Under the HPOA, licensees themselves have a duty to protect the public from discrimination (HPOA s. 72(1)(a)), and the HPOA expressly defines discrimination as a form of misconduct (HPOA s. 9(d) and 11(1)(c)). The clarified regulatory and professional duties under the HPOA follow closely after BC’s “In Plain Sight” report (2020), which identified that Indigenous peoples in British Columbia face pervasive racism and discrimination in BC’s health care system.
As examined by the full report (and as summarized by this executive summary), research and lived experience show that a pervasive and damaging form of discrimination is micro-discrimination (also known as microaggression) which can be be subtle, casual, and easily dismissed. Micro-discriminations, repeated over time, causes severe mental and physical harms to Indigenous persons and communities. Such forms of discrimination often arise in the consumer retail context, as a result of CRP, but can arise in any service context.
These experts prepared their report for use in the matter of Wilson v. Canadian Tire et al., a case set to be heard before the BC Human Rights Tribunal this fall. The Wilsons – an Indigenous father and daughter – allege that while waiting for their vehicle to be serviced at a Canadian Tire garage, they went shopping at the store. As they were unloading their goods at the cashier, a security guard singled out the father for a backpack search while ignoring other customers with backpacks. Later, after the daughter told a garage staff member about what happened at the check-out, that employee made derogatory comments about Indigenous people. When the daughter complained further, Canadian Tire failed to investigate, apologize, or take any measures other than offering a gift card.
Drs. Foster and Jacobs prepared their report on CRP and Indigenous peoples to address the broader social context of consumer racial profiling. Theie report makes clear that the impacts of microaggressions are cumulative, systemic, and damaging to physical and mental health. The harms of such encounters extend beyond the individual, into communities and across generations.
In their expert report, Drs. Foster and Jacobs describe how CRP – the discriminatory targeting of Indigenous or other racialized people in consumer settings – often manifests:
- Micro-insults – subtle rudeness or insensitivity that demeans Indigenous heritage (e.g., condescending tone, eye-rolling)
- Micro-invalidations – denying or dismissing the experiential reality of racism (e.g., “I don’t see colour”, asking “are you really Indigenous?”)
- Micro-assaults – explicit derogatory acts or statements (e.g., avoiding Indigenous patients, associating Indigenous people with harmful stereotypes)
While each act might be dismissed as small, like the proverbial “death by a thousand cuts” their cumulative impact is profound, causing psychological trauma, eroding trust in institutions, and reinforcing systemic inequities. Drs. Foster and Jacobs’ findings link acts of micro-discriminations to:
- Mental health harm – depression, anxiety, substance use, suicidal ideation.
- Physical health harm – elevated allostatic load (chronic stress damage) leading to increased risk of chronic diseases.
- Social harm – loss of trust and alienation from public institutions and businesses leading to disenfranchisement and disempowerment, reinforcement of second-class citizenship status, and self-loathing leading to weakened connection with own community.
- Intergenerational harm – alienation of youth from mainstream society, and disillusionment among elders of being treated fairly by public institution and services.
These harms have direct implications for health regulators and health professionals: Indigenous people may delay or avoid seeking care and distrust complaints processes – particularly if they witnessed other institutions ignore, dismiss, or fail to treat them fairly. The In Plain Sight report also found that Indigenous people were disproportionately less likely to seek mental health support – further exacerbating the above harms.
The report provides recommendations that may be useful not only for service providers in the consumer retail sector, but for all service providers, to avoid consumer racial profiling. They include restorative justice and Indigenous healing (e.g., Indigenous justice processes and principles in complaints resolution, to acknowledge harm, to restore dignity, and to support mutual healing), and mandatory cultural safety and anti-racism training(e.g., training to build practical skills for providing respectful and culturally sensitive services).
Lisa C. Fong, KC and Victor Chan