An employer can run an imperfect recruitment process and still have a defensible explanation for whom it hires. That was central to Ayangma v. Canada Health Infoway Inc., 2014 PECA 13, a Prince Edward Island human rights appeal involving a senior telehealth position.
Noël Ayangma applied for the position of program director with Canada Health Infoway. He alleged that the recruitment process discriminated against him because of race and national or ethnic origin, and argued that the organization engaged in broader systemic discrimination. The human rights panel considered evidence that the selection process had flaws and lacked transparency. It also assessed the actual competing candidates and the employer's explanation for choosing another applicant.
The panel accepted evidence that the successful candidate had qualifications better suited to the role and concluded that Ayangma hadn't been rejected because of a prohibited characteristic. His application for judicial review failed, as did his appeal to the Prince Edward Island Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court of Canada subsequently dismissed his application for leave to appeal. That leave decision wasn't itself a ruling on the merits of the discrimination complaint.
The important point is not that recruitment flaws don't matter. They can. A poorly documented or inconsistent interview process may support an inference of discrimination, particularly when the employer can't explain what happened. Here, however, the tribunal had additional evidence and accepted the employer's explanation. The reviewing courts didn't replace those factual and credibility findings simply because the claimant disagreed with them.
For employers, the lesson is to document the actual qualifications and assessment criteria rather than expecting an informal process to speak for itself. For workers, the decision shows the difference between identifying a problematic hiring practice and proving that a prohibited ground affected the ultimate decision. Those questions can overlap, but they aren't identical.
Sources: Prince Edward Island Court of Appeal, Ayangma v. Canada Health Infoway Inc., 2014 PECA 13. Official Supreme Court leave docket and case summary: https://www.scc-csc.ca/cases-dossiers/search-recherche/36088/