Canadian National Railway Co.v. Canada (Human Rights Comm.) and Action travail des femmes

A Human Rights Tribunal constituted under s.39 of the Canadian Human Rights Act 1976-77 found that the recruitment, hiring, and promotion policies at Canadian National Railway Company (“CN”) prevented and discouraged women from working on blue collar jobs and as a result it imposed a special employment programme on CN. The programme required CN to increase to 13% the proportion of women working in non-traditional occupations and until that goal was achieved to hire at least one woman for every four non-traditional jobs filled in the future. On appeal, the Supreme Court had to determine whether the Tribunal has the power to impose upon an employer an “employment equity program” to address the problem of systematic discrimination in the hiring and promotion of a disadvantaged group, in this case women. The Supreme Court found that the order was within the Tribunal’s jurisdiction under s.41(2)(a) of the Canadian Human Rights Act. It said that an employment equity program such as the one in question is an attempt to ensure that future applicants and workers from the affected group will not face the same barriers and that the order in question was the only means by which the purpose of the Canadian Human Rights Act could be met.