Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that this committee recommends that the Department of Justice review and assess the advisability of prohibiting discrimination based on unrelated criminal convictions or criminal records.
The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s my understanding that in 2005 the Human Rights Commission recommended the inclusion of unrelated criminal records as protected grounds for discrimination for employment. I also understand that it wasn’t supported at that time because there was a concern about increased litigation, that it could increase litigation substantially as the definition for “unrelated” was felt to be too broad and subjective.
I feel that was the wrong thing to do at the time. There are three other jurisdictions that offer such protection: Quebec, British Columbia and the Yukon. All three jurisdictions report very few, around 1 percent of all complaints, on these grounds were lodged. So there is no floodgate. There is no substantially increased litigation. There are plenty of court decisions, including decisions from courts of appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada, which provide ample guidance for discerning an objective definition. As a common-law jurisdiction it’s expected that courts build on previous decisions to breathe new meaning into the law. The cost of litigation would not increase substantially. This is evidenced by the very small proportion of complaints filed under this ground and other jurisdictions. The most costly area of human rights litigation is disability and accommodation issues, not unrelated criminal records.
There are two categories for the grounds of protection under our human rights legislation and they are immutable grounds, which are basically personal traits which cannot be changed or can be changed at any great personal cost. Things like race, religion, sex and sexual orientation. There are also non-immutable grounds: personal characteristics which are generally irrelevant to one’s ability to work or contract but may subject individuals to stigma or hostility. These are things like political opinion or affiliation, union membership, social condition, immigration status, source of income, and unrelated criminal records.
Things that I think we should be considering and the government should be considering when we’re talking about this motion, is that criminal record holders in the Northwest Territories are, unfortunately, overwhelmingly of Aboriginal decent. Discrimination on the basis of an unrelated criminal record could compound discrimination already faced by individuals in the Northwest Territories, especially marginalizing the individuals. This is a fundamental underpinning of human rights legislation, that qualified persons should not be refused employment on irrelevant traits.
We’re talking about unrelated criminal records here and I think this is an important motion for us to pass and I think it’s an important action that this government needs to take and amend human rights legislation accordingly so that we can protect our residents.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called.
---Carried
Mr. Menicoche.
