Date
August
23
2007
Members Present
ITEM 1: PRAYER
Assembly Members
Debates of August 23, 2007 (day 16)
Topics
Statements
Member’s Statement On Duty To Accommodate Guidelines For GNWT Employees
Jane Groenewegen
Hay River South
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to use my Member’s statement to draw attention to a potential gap in the guidelines for applying the duty to accommodate for employees of our public service. The human rights legislation is quite clear that the employer has the duty to accommodate when an employee has an obligation to care for a family member with a disability unless it can be proven that this accommodation causes undue hardship to the employer.
Managers in our public service should have reflective policies that allow them to make these accommodations within a clearly defined set of circumstances. Employees of our public service should not have to resort to making an application under the Human Rights Commission to assert that accommodation.
I believe that the GNWT would like to be seen as a fair and compassionate employer when it comes to a matter of accommodating employees who could not, for example, work a nightshift in order to care for a family member with a disability that would not allow that family member to be left alone at night.
Understandably, without such an internal policy, managers would be in the unenviable situation of trying to arbitrarily decide on requests that would come before them for any number of reasons to accommodate the needs of their employees. I would like to know what committees or decision-making bodies exist within government departments to consider the requests of employees when employees make an application to be accommodated in this way.
In the absence of clearly defined policy, which should be in keeping with the human rights legislation, the possibility of abuse of this accommodation for less than serious or frivolous circumstances could put the manager of that employee in a very difficult situation. They could be seen to be making such decisions in an ad hoc manner.
Mr. Speaker, for the benefit of employer and employee, in the interest of treating our public servants with fairness, dignity and respect, I believe that such policies, if they do not exist today, should exist. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause