By Bob Mackin | Prince George Citizen
A B.C. Supreme Court judge dismissed a petition by Gibraltar Mines Ltd. and sent a worker’s long-running discrimination complaint back to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.
In a Dec. 12 verdict, published Jan. 14., Justice Veronica Jackson concluded that Gibraltar did not establish special or exceptional circumstances that would justify an early judicial review.
“In my view, it is more appropriate for the complaint to be first dealt with by the tribunal, which has the specific expertise to evaluate the complaint at a full hearing in consideration of all of the evidence to make factual findings, to consider the relevant social context and the law and to form its conclusions,” Jackson wrote.
Respondent Lisa Harvey was a journeyman welder at the mine between Quesnel and Williams Lake and her husband a journeyman electrician, both members of the union who worked 12-hour shifts.
Harvey gave birth to the couple’s first child in 2017, but near the end of her maternity leave, the couple unsuccessfully asked the company to change their work schedules to accommodate parenting.
In 2018, Harvey accused her employer of discrimination under the Human Rights Code. The tribunal threw out the sex and marital status discrimination allegations, but not the family status complaint.
Justice Margot Fleming quashed the tribunal decision in 2022, calling the family status test incorrect. The tribunal appealed. The Court of Appeal overturned Fleming’s decision and sent the case back to the B.C. Supreme Court to consider remaining issues.
Fleming was appointed to the Court of Appeal and, a few days before the judicial review, Jackson was assigned to the case.
“In my view, this case is a poster child for the problems that can flow from permitting early judicial review,” Jackson wrote. “The hearing on the merits of the complaint is only anticipated to take four days, and it could have been over years ago.”
