Category Archives: Human Rights

End? of a “Twenty-two-Year Odyssey” for Delorie Walsh

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Case commented on: Walsh v Mobil Oil Canada, 2013 ABCA 238.

While several blogs have been written on the Walsh v Mobil Oil Canada case (see here, here and here), I was hoping not to have to write yet another one, and I really hope that the matter has come to a final conclusion, but I almost hesitate to so state. As noted by the majority of the Alberta Court of Appeal (Justices Paperny and McDonald, with Justice O’Ferrall concurring in the result), Ms. Walsh could not have known that when she filed her discrimination complaint against her former employer in 1991, it would lead to the termination of her employment and to a “22-year odyssey” to seek a remedy for her situation. As noted by the Court, Walsh appeared before the Human Rights Tribunal four times, the Court of Queen’s Bench twice, and this current case is Ms. Walsh’s second time before the Alberta Court of Appeal.

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Arbitration, Disability and Human Rights Cases

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Case commented on: AUPE v Alberta, 2013 ABCA 212.

This case involves the fairly technical issue of whether, in Alberta, a grievance involving a human rights issue should be resolved by an adjudicator who is entirely independent of the employer, who is a party. In this case, the collective agreement provided for the complaint to be resolved before a Designated Officer who was an employee of one of the parties, although not subject to the collective agreement. The Labour Relations Code, RSA 2000, c L-1 (Labour Code), section 135, provides that every collective agreement must include a dispute resolution mechanism, but does not contain any direct statement requiring that the arbitration mechanism must operate in circumstances absent a reasonable apprehension of bias (as is the case in some other provinces). There had been some prior cases involving section 135, but none of these involved a potential breach of both the collective agreement and the Alberta Human Rights Act, RSA 2000, c A-25.5 (AHRA).

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The Alberta Court of Appeal and the Test for Discrimination

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Case commented on: Lethbridge Regional Police Service v Lethbridge Police Association, 2013 ABCA 47, leave to appeal denied, June 20, 2013, Supreme Court of Canada.

A couple of months ago I posted a blog on the uncertainty over the test for discrimination under human rights legislation, particularly in Alberta (see here). In the Supreme Court’s most recent human rights decision, Moore v British Columbia (Education), 2012 SCC 61, the Court appeared to return to the traditional prima facie approach to discrimination first set out in Ontario Human Rights Commission and O’Malley v Simpsons-Sears, [1985] 2 SCR 536. Yet in Lethbridge Regional Police Service v Lethbridge Police Association, the Alberta Court of Appeal declined to cite Moore, and applied a restrictive test for discrimination in the employment context. This approach operated to the detriment of Lester, a probationary police constable whose claim of discrimination was dismissed because the Lethbridge Regional Police Service appeared to have at least some non-discriminatory reasons for not extending his contract, and because there was found to be no evidence of stereotyping or egregious discrimination (see para 37). The Court of Appeal took a similarly restrictive approach in Wright v College and Association of Registered Nurses of Alberta (Appeals Committee), 2012 ABCA 267, in which the Supreme Court declined to grant leave to appeal (see 2013 CanLII 15573 (SCC)).  On June 20, 2013, the SCC also denied leave to appeal in the Lethbridge Police Association case. As is the usual practice, the panel (Justices LeBel, Karakatsanis and Wagner) did not provide reasons for decision. This is an unfortunate development given the need for clarity over the test for discrimination. Until the Supreme Court decides to tackle that issue head on, it is to be hoped that the Court of Appeal will follow the Supreme Court’s direction in Moore, and cease its inclination to impose onerous burdens on human rights claimants.

Roundtable on Quebec v A: Searching for Clarity on Equality

By: Jennifer Koshan and Jonnette Watson Hamilton

PDF Version: Roundtable on Quebec v A: Searching for Clarity on Equality

Case Commented On: Quebec (Attorney General) v A, 2013 SCC 5 (case summary available here)

On May 13, 2013, we led the Faculty of Law’s first roundtable discussion of the summer on the Supreme Court’s most recent equality rights decision, Quebec (Attorney General) v A. Participants included faculty members, researchers from the Alberta Civil Liberties Research Centre and Alberta Law Reform Institute, and a number of JD and graduate students. Coincidentally, a virtual roundtable on the case is also ongoing at the moment, moderated by Sonia Lawrence, Director of Osgoode Hall’s Institute for Feminist Legal Studies (IFLS), with participation from law profs Robert Leckey, Hester Lessard, Bruce Ryder, and Margot Young. Many of the issues raised in the IFLS discussion were also debated in our roundtable.

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Language Protection in the Human Rights Sphere

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Cases considered: Caron v Alberta (Chief Commissioner, Human Rights Commission), 2013 ABQB 13, and Chieriro v Michetti, 2013 AHRC 3.

The Caron language rights saga discussed in previous posts on ABlawg (see here) continues, as the next development in his continuing litigation was recently released by the Court of Queen’s Bench of Alberta. This post will discuss that decision, as well as a recent decision of the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal, Chieriro v Michetti, 2013 AHRC 3, which also raises issues about the protection of language-related rights.  

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