Ontario Employers To Continue To Grapple With Human Rights Claims In Multiple Forums

Background

Last fall, the Supreme Court of Canada found labour arbitrators had exclusive jurisdiction over human rights claims under Manitoba's human rights legislation.¹ Based on the Supreme Court's ruling, the Manitoba Human Rights Commission was prevented from hearing a human rights claim where a collective agreement provided for a grievance procedure to resolve the dispute before a labour arbitrator. This would have significant impacts on unionized employers who were grappling with employees filing both grievances and human rights claims.

The Supreme Court's case dealt with Manitoba legislation. Whether other provincial human rights legislation similarly prevented human rights tribunals from hearing unionized employees' workplace human rights claims remained an open question. When both a labour arbitrator and human rights tribunal can hear a claim, this is referred to as concurrent jurisdiction. Since the early 2000s, Ontario courts have found the Human