Access to Human Rights Commission

Dear Members, 

The issue of unionized employees’ access to the Human Rights Commission continues to raise concerns.  Prior to the fall of 2021, there was a bit of a gray area about whether an employee could choose to pursue a grievance/arbitration or make a complaint under the Human Rights Act when the matter involved a violation of the employee’s human rights.  In the fall of 2021, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that an employee working under a Union collective agreement must pursue these matters through grievance/arbitration.  The only exception is if the human rights legislation allows for some matters to be brought under a human rights complaint.  At this stage, the Nova Scotia Human Rights Act does not provide any exceptions, however, the Nova Scotia Human Rights Commission has claimed concurrent jurisdiction with any collective agreement on Human Rights cases in NS.  

The case described in below link to a CBC News article is bringing this concurrent jurisdiction issue before the Court of Appeal.  If the appeal is successful, we may see future legislation to uphold the concurrent jurisdiction.  This would give a unionized employee with a human Rights Complaint against their employer a choice to go through the Human Rights Commission or go through with the grievance process. 

If there are any future changes, we will keep you posted. 

N.S. court hears case on unionized workers' access to Human Rights Commission (msn.com)