Adam Gorley
New human rights procedures came into effect in Ontario in mid-2008, and we’re beginning to see the results of the changes. Session Two at First Reference’s Ontario Employment Law Conference, June 2, 2010, will look at:
The key premises of the new rules are:
Under the new rules, individuals file human rights complaints directly with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. The Ontario Human Rights Commission no longer has the legal authority to handle or refer complaints to the tribunal.
The purpose of the amended rules is that it makes it easier for individuals to access the human rights system, and to make the system more fair, efficient and effective. The tribunal also use the new rules to make sure employers are serious about their duty to accommodate. Not surprisingly, these changes are having significant effects on the way the tribunal interprets its cases, which in turn, is causing important direct and indirect effects on employers.
Stringer Brisbin Humphrey (co-sponsor of the Employment Law Conference) predicts that the changes will continue a trend in Ontario toward higher general damages, increasing restitution awards, and broader public interest remediation demands:
The tribunal is “increasingly utilizing more costly monetary remedies and more onerous and comprehensive public policy remediation elements to encourage employers to ensure compliance with equality rights guarantees. … Employers can anticipate the prospect of increasingly aggressive financial remediation (given the removal of limits on general damages) and more expansive and intrusive approaches to public policy interest remediation.
So, don’t get in trouble with employees who require accommodation! Well, it’s not as simple as that, is it? But you can learn what the new human rights system rules mean for you when you register for the 2010 Employment Law Conference—and Learn the latest!
Accommodating employees with disabilities to the point of undue hardship under human rights legislation can be a complicated task. It’s important to make sure the accommodation process goes smoothly and the employee can focus on working as efficiently as possible, but employers may not be sure about what kinds of questions to ask disabled employees in order to meet their needs.
Christina Catenacci, BA, LLB, LLM, PhD
The Canadian Human Rights Commission recently posted a policy on its website concerning how it interprets and applies section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act (CHRA) when it receives an inquiry or complaint. The purpose of section 13 of the Act is to balance Canadians’ rights to equality and freedom of expression with respect to hate messages, as protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The parliamentary record indicates that section 13 was initially included in the legislation to address activities of individuals and groups who used the telephone system to disseminate hate messages. In December 2001, parliament amended the CHRA by adding section 13(2), which makes it clear that Internet hate messages come under the jurisdiction of the commission.
Read the whole article on Slaw.ca.
Marie-Yosie Saint-Cyr, LL.B. Managing Editor
I’ve discussed workplace gossip here before, and what bosses can do to prevent it or at least reduce the potential harm, but there are a couple of hyper-modern developments that I didn’t get into: reality television and the Internet. These two things have created a culture of “sharing”, for lack of a better word, that encourages people at play or work to divulge the most mundane and private details of their lives to others—the kind of information that one previously might only have shared with family or best friends.
Adam Gorley