22 Aug 2013 The right to procedural accommodation

This short explanation short explanation on the right to procedural accommodation is a bit more technical but worth working through. I’ll attempt a brief summary: at the federal level, the Canada

Human Rights Act does not require a duty of federal employers to make special accommodations for employees procedurally if it has demonstrated that it has a bona fide (i.e. good faith) occupational requirement that excludes an employee from certain types of work because of religion or disability, etc. (An example would be a diabetic excluded from a posting to Afghanistan because of the lack of medical facilities there).

is different than in BC, where there is an independent right to procedural accommodation: even if an employer has proven that he/she has a bona fide occupational requirement for a job, where to accommodate a certain employee would place undue hardship on the employer, nevertheless, if the employer has not made special accommodations for the employee during the process of determining whether there is a bona fide occupational requirement, the employer can still be guilty of a human rights violation.

The federal model is the better one because there is less cost and hassle for the employer, with the same end result for the employee. BC should fix their Code and bring it in line with the federal Act.