Governments, at the behest of “progressive forces” years ago, created Human Rights Tribunals in each of the provinces. There is even a federal one, which is restricted to matters of federal law.
They seem to love their authority and ability to “make waves.”
A Quebec Human Rights Tribunal recently disciplined a comedian for offensive speech. To me, that is even more offensive and dangerous, than offensive speech.
A British Columbia Human Rights tribunal recently found that the UBC medical school did not do enough to “accommodate” a medical student- who had some learning deficits and hammered them financially for forcing him out of medical school. He must have finished somewhere else as he is practicing in BC. What is interesting is that UBC appealed to the BC Superior Court and then up to the BC Court of Appeal. That latter body found that it would not deal with the quantum of the damage award unless it was “wholly erroneous”, which is a standard much more robust than that applicable to normal lawsuit awards.
This ruling will empower Human Rights tribunals even more, and will send a chill down the necks of businesses or schools responding to Human Rights complaints.
It reminds me of the time, 25 years or so ago, being a couple of years after I finished my Bar Admissions Course, that our Law Society of Upper Canada, caved to the demands of a group of Bar Admission students who claimed that their culture did not have deadlines and that they should not have to finish their exams in three hours per course, like everyone else. We can now add medical schools to the list of those, who realistically, will have to cave in to demands from anyone who is not a straight, able bodied WASP male (as that is the one group who cannot access this free, parallel, set of court equivalents).
How long will it be, before a Human Rights Tribunal tries to take jurisdiction over what is said in a legislature or court room?
In my view, there should be one court system for everyone, and everyone who uses it, should have to pay, or face paying costs to the winning side. Thus, we should eliminate these Human Rights Tribunals once and for all. I look forward to anyone’s comments.