A disability discrimination complaint can look like an obvious matter for a human rights tribunal. For unionized employees, though, the first question may be who has the authority to hear it. In Northern Regional Health Authority v. Horrocks, 2021 SCC 42, the Supreme Court of Canada decided that question under Manitoba's labour legislation, rather than deciding whether the employer had actually discriminated against the employee.
Linda Horrocks worked for a Manitoba regional health authority and was covered by a collective agreement. After she attended work under the influence of alcohol, the employer suspended her. She later entered into an agreement requiring her to abstain from alcohol. The employer subsequently terminated her employment. Her union challenged the termination and she was reinstated on conditions, but further workplace difficulties followed and her employment ended again. Horrocks alleged that the employer had failed to accommodate her alcohol dependency and brought a complaint under Manitoba's Human Rights Code.
The human rights adjudicator concluded that the complaint could proceed and considered its merits. The employer maintained that the essential character of the dispute was a workplace disagreement arising under the collective agreement, so the appropriate decision maker was a labour arbitrator. The litigation therefore turned on the interaction between a labour relations statute assigning disputes to arbitration and a human rights statute providing its own complaint process.
A six judge majority of the Supreme Court agreed with the employer. Under Manitoba's statutory scheme, labour arbitrators had exclusive jurisdiction over disputes arising from the interpretation, application, administration or alleged violation of a collective agreement. The Court looked at the essential character of the dispute, not merely the legal label used in the complaint. Horrocks' allegations concerned the suspension and termination of her unionized employment, matters within the collective agreement's reach. The human rights legislation did not clearly give the adjudicator concurrent jurisdiction over this particular dispute. The employer's appeal was allowed, and the human rights adjudicator could not hear the complaint.
That ruling didn't establish that Horrocks had no right to accommodation. It didn't resolve whether the employer had met its obligations or whether her dismissal was discriminatory. It decided the forum in which those questions could be adjudicated. The distinction matters because jurisdiction can determine the available procedure, the role of the union and whether a separate human rights complaint can proceed at all.
For employers, unions and employees, the practical lesson is to identify the governing collective agreement and legislation early when a workplace human rights issue arises. Horrocks is not a universal rule that every unionized human rights complaint in Canada must go to arbitration. The Court's analysis depends on the particular statutory allocation of jurisdiction, and different legislation can produce a different answer.
Source: Supreme Court of Canada, Northern Regional Health Authority v. Horrocks, 2021 SCC 42, https://decisions.scc-csc.ca/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/19043/index.do