HOW hard do Canadian human rights bodies strive to keep Canada free of discrimination? On your behalf, I should add.
Well, the Canadian Human Rights Commission spent 22 years – on one file. The Public Service Alliance of Canada alleged in 1983 that Canada Post’s mostly female clerical workers were being paid less than its mostly male workers in operational jobs. The CHRC investigated for a decade, spent 12 more years in hearings, then, in 2005, found Canada Post guilty. The agency was ordered to pay a staggering $150 million in compensation to some 6,000 workers.
You’d think, after all that time and the amount of money involved, that the evidence against Canada Post must have been overwhelming. Then again, these are human rights commissions and tribunals, where rules of evidence are not as exacting as in a court of law.
That became clear when the Federal Court of Canada threw out both the judgment and multi-million-dollar award last week. In fact, the Federal Court judge said he found little evidence of wage discrimination. He did discover, however, that the commission had ignored the fact that most women who had been working for Canada Post were in higher-paid non-clerical jobs. The unreasonable time spent on this case, the judge added strongly, "offends" the public’s sense of what is "reasonable and responsible." MORE
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