Does The Charter Trump Human Rights?

A recent decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal has interesting implications when it comes to competing rights, particularly when some of those rights are protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In Taylor-Baptiste v. Ontario Public Service Employees Union, 2015 ONCA 495, the appellant was a manager at a Toronto jail. The individual respondent was a jail employee who had reported to the appellant and was also president of the jail's union local. The union was also named a respondent.

The relevant events occurred during a period of collective bargaining in 2009. The individual respondent had operated a blog about union matters on which he authored a post that was sexist and demeaning of the appellant. Among other things, the offending blog post suggested that the appellant should call her boyfriend for help and that she only received her job because of nepotism. The individual respondent also approved a blog post by another individual that was similarly