Nov 10
18
Is McGuinty’s Tribunal an extortion factory?
Financial Post – Nov. 16, 2010
Tribunal has some flaws
By Howard Levitt
Heralded by the McGuinty government as the protector of human rights in Ontario, the Human Rights Tribunal was to have ushered in a new era. Unlike the Human Rights Commission before it, the government assured us the Tribunal would efficiently process complaints and ensure fair hearings for employers and employees alike.
My concerns the Tribunal would fail to meet these lofty commitments have been quickly realized. It has proven to be yet another expensive ideological boondoggle for the Ontario taxpayer in many respects. I will limit my comments to the flaws in the procedures and their draconian impact on Ontario employers:
No screening
Under the current system, every human rights complaint has a guaranteed hearing and both meritorious and frivolous complaints are placed in the same queue without prioritization. For example, Emily Carasco, a professor at the University of Windsor law school, who is a woman and also a visible minority, brought allegations of sex and race discrimination against the law school and a professor when her application to become the dean was halted. In the final stages of the interview process, a colleague Richard Moon, alleged Carasco had engaged in plagiarism. The search committee decided to not proceed with Carasco and another candidate’s applications. Ironically, the university had hired the first black female dean of law in Canada more than a decade earlier and Moon is a respected human rights scholar. Under the old system, Carasco’s complaint would have been assigned to an investigator to determine whether it had merit. A separate body of commissioners would review the investigator’s report and decide whether they should engage the public purse in an expensive Tribunal hearing. Now, regardless of how frivolous, the complaint appears to be, Carasco is assured a hearing.
Delays
The time it takes for complaints to be processed by the Tribunal is reminiscent of the Commission it succeeded. Correspondence is not answered, much less acknowledged, for months, while requests for preliminary orders sit for similar lengthy periods. Mediations can take up to 12 months before they are scheduled.
Extortionate mediations
The Tribunal claims two-thirds of cases are settled at mediation. This is an alarming statistic in an environment where grievances are proferred without consequence to the employee. Those mediations have become exercises in extortion, where employers, or their lawyers, are told settle or shoulder the expense of a hearing. This is exacerbated by the fact the government funds legal representation for claimants who would never qualify for legal aid while employers must hire lawyers.