Month: June 2020

ER Staff “Game” of Guessing Indigenous Patients’ Blood-Alcohol Levels is Potential Human Rights Code Violation

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Fontaine

CEO Daniel Fontaine of the Métis Nation of British Columbia (MNBC) and the British Columbia Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres (BCAAFC) advised  the BC government this week that they have heard emergency room health care staff are playing a “game” of guessing the blood-alcohol concentration levels of Indigenous patients. The allegation became public today, when Provincial Health Minister Adrian Dix held a news conference to advise that he had been made aware of the allegations yesterday and the MNBC issued a media release stating that the “game” is unacceptable.

According to Fontaine, it has been reported that hospital staff called the game “the Price is Right.” They try to guess the blood-alcohol levels as close as they can, without going over. Fontaine stated that the practice is “deeply disturbing and must immediately come to an end.” Dix stated that “if true, it is intolerable, unacceptable, and racist and its effect on patient care is intolerable, unacceptable, and racist.” The MNBC and BCAAFC have called upon the Ministry of Health to accept the following four recommendations:

  1. A public inquiry into Indigenous specific racism in health care in B.C with a focus on hospitals and emergency departments.
  2. Ensure that all front-line staff are required to take mandatory First Nations, Métis and Inuit training that results in increased health professional personal accountability in the delivery of safe health care.
  3. Commit to structural and systemic changes to dismantle indigenous specific racism to ensure culturally safe health care experiences for Indigenous people.
  4. Ensure that Indigenous governments play a stronger role in the development and implementation of anti-racism programs and training throughout BC.

If the allegations are true, there is potential for this abhorrent conduct to give rise to a representative complaint under the BC Human Rights Code. The BC Human Rights Tribunal Form 1.3 – Complaint for Group or Class allows complainants to file complaints about discrimination on behalf of a group or class of people. A “group” is a “number of individuals who are or easily could be identified by name. For example, people who work for the same employer, or people who are members of the same society or association.” A “class” is a “number of individuals who can be identified by characteristics that they share. For example, residents of Vancouver who are visually impaired.” I would argue that the Indigenous targets of these acts are members of both a group and a class. If the staff members who played this “game” and times during which they did so are made available, the patients who they saw at those times could potentially be identified. Those patients would be members of a “group.” Additionally, Indigenous residents of the identified Health Authority, or of the province, may constitute a “class.”

The BC Human Rights Code is meant to prohibit discrimination in certain areas of daily life based on someone’s race, colour, ancestry, or place of origin, among other characteristics. Indigeneity, of course, falls within the protected characteristics. One of the areas of daily life that are meant to be protected is the provision of accommodation, services, and facilities customarily available to the public. As such, the provision of health care services falls within the code-protected areas of daily life.

Dix has appointed Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond to investigate the matter and make recommendations about an immediate long-term response. She is a former judge and the former Representative for Children and Youth of BC, among many other accomplishments. She is now a professor at UBC and senior counsel in the area of Aboriginal Law.

In addition to Turpel-Lafond’s investigation or in response to her recommendations, it’s possible that a representative human rights complaint could be made.

Tribunal Dismisses Complaint Against Strata for Discrimination in Addressing Noisy Neighbour Situation

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annoyed stressed woman covering her ears, looking up loud noise upstairs

In his reasons issued on June 16, 2020, BC Human Rights Tribunal Member Paul Singh dismissed a complaint against a strata for allegedly failing to enforce a noise bylaw against the complainant’s neighbours because of her sex and marital status. The complaint was made under section 8 of the BC Human Rights Code, as strata councils are considered to be providers of accommodation, services, or facilities customarily available to the public.

The complainant owns a condo in a strata. She alleged that the residents in the unit above hers were too loud. According to the Tribunal, several actions were taken by the strata and neighbours in an effort to address the complainant’s concerns. The strata:

  • sent caution notices to the upstairs neighbours,
  • conducted noise inspections,
  • tried to arrange a mediation and other voluntary dispute resolution processes between the neighbours and the complainant,
  • included a note in strata council meeting minutes to keep residents aware of the noise issue,
  • sent out “good neighbour” noise notices to all unit owners in the building,
  • sent a letter to the upstairs neighbours suggesting a change of flooring,
  • adopted a bylaw regarding installation of underlay for new flooring to reduce noise, and
  • retained an engineer to determine whether any structural deficiencies existed between the units.

The upstairs neighbours apparently changed their flooring and started wearing slippers.

The Complainant argued that all of these measures were inadequate.

She alleged that her sex and marital status were a factor in the strata’s failure to adequately address her noise concerns. She thought this was the case because of an exchange she had in the building’s parkade with a strata council member who said something to the effect of “you shouldn’t have to put up with that because you are a single woman.” She said that aside from the discrimination which should be inferred from the comment in the parkade, there was no other explanation for why the strata “did nothing” over three years.

The Tribunal held that there was no reasonable prospect of the complainant succeeding in showing a nexus between her sex or marital status and any adverse impact she experienced from the noise in her unit. It held as follows at paragraph 59 of the decision:

The Respondents do not specifically deny that the Comment was made to Ms. Dolinsky. However, the Comment, even if made, cannot reasonably be seen as anything other than an offhand remark made during a brief, casual conversation. A Strata Council member telling Ms. Dolinsky that she should not have to put up with noise issues because she was a “single woman” is simply not sufficient to establish discrimination under the Code given all the steps the Strata had taken through the years to help address and ameliorate Ms. Dolinsky’s noise concerns.

The Tribunal also held the following at paragraph 62:

…it is not the Tribunal’s role to assess the merits of a strata’s management decisions for its building, including the process for investigating and enforcing bylaws, so long
as those decisions are not used as a pretext for discrimination. What concerns the Tribunal is only whether a characteristic protected by the Code was a factor in these decisions: Li v. Options Community Services and others, 2020 BCHRT 104 at para. 84.

Employee Awarded Over $23,000 for Employer’s Withholding of Work when Jealous of her Sexual Relationships with other Men

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Young woman on scaffolding by roof

Tribunal Member Emily Ohler issued her reasons on June 10, 2020 for allowing a woman’s complaint regarding sexist discrimination in employment and retaliation.

The complainant LL had worked for a roof repair company from 2009 to 2017. She and the owner of the company, DM, began a personal, sexual relationship around 2011. Following an eight-day hearing, the Tribunal held that although DM did not exploit LL’s reliance on him for work by making work conditional upon her having sex with him, he did “impose adverse employment-related consequences on LL for issues arising from their personal relationship rather than the employment sphere,” and that LL’s sex was a factor in these consequences. The Tribunal also held that DM retaliated against LL in breach of section 43 of the BC Human Rights Code by texting a link to a pornographic video LL appeared in to her cousin and others.

DM had a wife who did not like LL. At some point, he apparently confided in LL about his unhappiness at home with his wife. And then the relationship between LL and DM began. LL’s evidence was that she never enjoyed having sex with DM or wanted him to leave his wife for her, but went ahead with the relationship because she thought she needed to in order to work for DM. DM’s evidence was that LL was a manipulator who used her sexuality to exploit him for financial and other benefits.

At paragraph 72, the Tribunal stated the following about the facts:

While I accept that LL exercised a high degree of autonomy and independence in her own life as well as in her relationships with the Respondents, as I will discuss further below, it is clear to me that DM understood how to exercise his own kind of control in the relationship when he became jealous or had his feelings hurt. As I will discuss, he did so by not showing up when LL counted on him, reclaiming the cars that he had given her, or – central to this complaint – withholding work.

At paragraphs 134 and 135 of the decision, the Tribunal Member sets out how DM imposed adverse employment-related consequences on LL when he was jealous about her having other men in her life:

[134] I do, however, find that there were occasions on which DM withheld work from LL when he became jealous or his feelings were hurt. On this point, I accept that LL sought to ‘keep DM happy’ in the relationship in part to avoid such repercussions. While it is undisputed that she derived a number of benefits from the personal relationship, I accept that she could not have normal relationships with other men in the way that she wanted to and that the possibility of a
fight with DM impacting her work adversely impacted her.

[135] In particular, on a balance of probabilities, in the context of the evidence of both LL and DM, and LL’s journal entries, I find that on the day of the February 2016 Incident in 2016, and on September 22, 29, and October 22, 2017, DM either did not pick LL up or did not tell her about where to go for work, and that he did this specifically in response to his feeling jealous about other men in LL’s life.

The tribunal stated the following about why these actions were in breach of the Human Rights Code:

[175] I am satisfied that LL has met her burden on a balance of probabilities in establishing that she experienced an adverse impact in her employment related to her sex. In Araniva v. RSY Contracting and another (No. 3), 2019 BCHRT 97 [Araniva], the Tribunal found that an employer’s decision to reduce an employee’s hours of work because the employee declined an invitation to socialize with him constituted a breach of s. 13 on the basis of sex. Here, DM’s jealousy over LL’s sexual relationships with other men cannot be extricated from her sex. DM imposed employment‐related consequences because that was one place where he had power
over LL when his feelings were hurt in their personal relationship.

…

[181] While I have not found that DM coerced LL into sex with the promise of work, I do find that DM periodically withdrew or withheld work when he became jealous or, in his words, his feelings were hurt, by LL’s standing him up or being with other men. This is, in fact, undisputed. DM explained that he loved LL, and so his feelings would be hurt when LL spurned him by not seeing him or by seeing someone else. DM would deny LL work simply because he stopped speaking to LL entirely during these periods when his feelings were hurt. This is not a defence, but an admission. DM was the boss. If DM’s feelings got hurt because he loved LL, with whom he was in a sexual relationship, it was his responsibility to put those feelings aside and treat LL fairly in the workplace regardless.

After LL filed the complaint, DM sent her cousin a pornographic video that she had appeared in many years ago when she was 19 years old. He knew the video upset her and would bring it up when he was angry at her.

Ultimately, the Trinbunal awarded LL $640 damages for the days it ruled she was denied work due to DM’s jealousy. It also awarded the complainant $15,000 for injury to her dignity, feelings, and self-respect in relation to the discrimination complaint and $7,500 for the retaliation.

The Tribunal stated the following about the retaliation damages:

It takes courage to file a complaint. In particular, LL’s complaint required her to publicize highly private, intimate details about her life. I view DM’s actions, taken in the context of his comments that the video showed people that LL is a “nasty” person, as depending upon and looking to further stereotypes about women generally and sexually active, sex‐positive women in particular. He wielded this as a weapon in response to his anger about LL’s complaint. Such actions must be discouraged.

Human Rights Tribunal Rules Burden on Mother to Consider Non-Corporate, Home-Based Daycare as Solution to Work Schedule/Childcare Conflict

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child plays with wooden blocks with letters on the floor in the room a little girl is building a tower at home or in the kindergarten.

In reasons issued on June 5, 2020, the BC Human Rights Tribunal dismissed the complaint of a Pacific Blue Cross (PBC) employee who alleged that her employer failed to accommodate her in relation to her family status.

The complainant was a team leader in PBC’s customer service department. She had just returned from maternity leave, which was already cut short due to a childcare issue.

Childcare can be difficult to find in BC. As parents of young children know, you often need to put your child on a childcare wait list, especially if you are looking to get them into childcare as an infant. It can take over a year to get off of a wait list. As a result, some parents in BC put their children on childcare wait lists before they are even born. Once your child’s turn on the wait list comes up, you need to choose to either put them in care or lose your spot.

Thus, when a spot became available for the complainant’s child at 10 months old, she decided to take the opportunity to get him into the facility and go back to work for PBC. Her office was in Burnaby and her home and childcare facility were in Langley. With traffic, the commute can be between 45 and 90 minutes.

The complainant’s work schedule prior to her maternity leave ended at 4:30pm and she understood it would continue to end at that time when she returned. Her son’s childcare required pick up by 6:00pm.

When she returned to work, she was told that her schedule would change to require her to work until 5:00pm for one week every four weeks. The complainant told PBC that she could not do this because it would not allow her time to reliably pick up her child by 6:00p.m. She expected PBC to accommodate her childcare schedule. They did not. As a result, she filed a human rights complaint asserting that she was discriminated against on the basis of her family status.

Tribunal Member Norman Trerise noted in his reasons that the law puts the onus on a the complainant to prove that the employer changed a term or condition of the employment and that the change seriously interfered with a substantial parental duty or obligation. Mr. Trerise held that the complainant did show there was a change to a term of the complainant’s employment. He held, however, that the change did not seriously interfere with a substantial parenting duty or obligation.

According to the member, this was because the complainant did not do enough to explore alternate childcare options. He held as follows:

It is clear that Ms. Ziegler made insufficient efforts to ascertain whether she could arrange alternate daycare which would allow her to work the altered shifts which PBC imposed on the TLs. She eliminated, without any visits to ascertain their suitability for her child’s needs, all home‐based private daycare facilities between Burnaby and Langley from her search. She did this out of a pre‐conceived idea that
“corporate” daycares were the only daycares which could provide suitable care to meet her standards. No evidence was placed before me to support such a position other than Ms. Ziegler’s bald assertion to that effect.

Further, he held:

[66] Instead of searching for a suitable daycare her energies went into fighting a battle to get PBC to provide her with an exemption from their revised work schedules for TLs and alternatively a search for alternate employment.

…

[68] Ms. Ziegler has made it clear in her evidence that she felt it was unfair for PBC to put her in the position where she must alter the childcare arrangement she had in place. In particular, she was not prepared to consider a non‐corporate, home‐based daycare as a possible solution. Many parents might react similarly, particularly given the age of her child. The test for discrimination on the basis of family status under the Code, however, makes it clear that more is required.

This decision provides a lesson for parents alleging discrimination in failing to accommodate their childcare schedules in the future. As per this decision, parents need to show that they have made an effort to find a solution to the problem. This could mean exploring alternative types of childcare facilities, an alternate schedule with the daycare provider you have, or an alternate schedule with your spouse and their employment. Even if your efforts are fruitless because you still could not solve the problem, the point is to show that you tried.