Many Canadian employers offer jobs to students during the
summer. While some might think that hiring these young candidates
on a temporary basis makes it possible to meet the higher workload
caused by the summer holidays at a lower cost, recent case law has
shown that employers should be careful not to establish different
working conditions for this category of employees without a
compelling justification.
In a recent decision1, the Human Rights Tribunal
of Quebec (the "Tribunal") held that student
status and the fact that students work during the summer to pay for
their studies must be equated to a "social condition"
protected under section 10 of the Quebec Charter of Human
Rights and Freedoms (the "Charter"). As a result,
according to the Tribunal, the fact that a clause in a collective
agreement allocates a lower wage to these students could constitute
discriminatory treatment prohibited by the Charter because it
represents a distinction based on two prohibited
