SCC Expands Employment Protection Under BC Human Rights Code

Originally published December 2017

In today's (15th December 2017) Supreme Court of Canada decision in British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal and Schrenk, a split court held that British Columbia's Human Rights Code provides protection to employees from the discriminatory conduct of persons unrelated to their own employer, provided that the discriminatory conduct arose in their employment setting.

The facts of the case were that the Complainant was an engineer working for a company called Omega and Associates Engineering. Omega had been hired by the municipality of Delta for work on a road project. As part of the work, the Complainant supervised workers of a construction company, Clemas Construction.  Mr. Schrenk, a Respondent, was a site foreman and superintendent employed by Clemas.  Over the course of about nine months, Mr. Schrenk engaged in various inappropriate conduct towards the Complainant, including making derogatory comments about his religion and