In a decision that was made remarkable by the dissent of a
single judge, the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed an appeal from an employee
of a mining company whose employment was terminated on the basis that he had
violated his employer’s drug use policy. See Stewart v. Elk Valley Coal Corp. 2017
SCC 30.
The employee, Ian Stewart,
worked driving a loader in a mine operated
by the company. The mine operations were dangerous and maintaining a safe
work site was a matter of great importance to the employer and its
employees. To ensure safety the employer implemented a policy requiring
that employees disclose any dependency or addiction issues before any
drug-related incident occurred. If they did, they would be offered
treatment. However, if they failed to disclose and were involved in an
incident and tested positive for drugs, their employment would be terminated.
Stewart used cocaine on his days off. He did not tell
his employer that he was using drugs. When he was involved in an accident
with his loader at work, he tested positive for drugs and later said that he
thought he was addicted to cocaine. The company terminated his
employment. Stewart, through his union representative, argued that he was
terminated for addiction and that constituted discrimination under section 7 of
the Alberta Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act.
The Albert Human Rights Tribunal (“Tribunal”) held
that Stewart was terminated for breaching the company policy, not because of
his addiction. Its decision was affirmed by the Alberta Court of Queen’s
Bench and by the Alberta Court of Appeal.
There were three sets of reasons written by the judges of
the Supreme Court. Six judges for the majority, two in separate but
concurring in the result, and one dissent.
The majority (reasons written by Chief Justice McLachlin)
held that the Tribunal decision was reasonable. There was evidence that
was capable of supporting the Tribunal’s conclusion that the reason for
Stewart’s termination was not addiction but breach of a policy. The
separate concurring reasons were written jointly by Justices Moldaver and
Wagner. They held that the Tribunal’s conclusion that Stewart’s direct
dependence was not a factor in his termination was unreasonable but that the
Tribunal reasonably held that the employer had met its obligation to
accommodate Stewart to the point of undue hardship. Justice Gascon, the only dissenting
judge, held that the Tribunal had improperly considered the issues in the case
and effectively excluded Stewart from the scope of human rights
protections. While the Tribunal had cited
the proper legal test for prima facie discrimination, the matter in which it applied the test and the
lack of an evidentiary foundation for its findings demonstrated that its
holding on “contribution” was unreasonable and thus unworthy of
deference.
Six Justices for the Majority
The majority decision was supported
by Justices McLachlin, Abella,
Karakatsanis, Cote, Brown and Rowe. The Tribunal had found that Stewart
had not established prime facie discrimination. The majority held
that the issues before the Tribunal were within its purview and attracted
deference. The only questions was whether
the Tribunal’s decision was reasonable. They found that there was
evidence capable of supporting the Tribunal’s conclusion that the reason for the
termination was not addiction but breach of the policy. On the facts of
this case, the Tribunal concluded that Stewart had the capacity to comply with
the terms of the policy and that he would have been fired whether he was an
addict or a casual user. It was therefore not unreasonable for the
Tribunal to conclude that there was no prima facie discrimination.
The Tribunal had unequivocally and repeatedly stated that addiction was not a
factor in the company’s decision to terminate Stewart’s employment. It
also rejected the argument that denial prevented Stewart from disclosing his
addiction prior to the accident. While Stewart may have been in denial
about his addiction, he knew he should not take drugs before working, had the
ability to decide not to take them as well as the capacity to disclose his drug
use to his employer. Accordingly, the majority found that denial about Stewart’s addiction was irrelevant in this case.
The Two Concurring Justices
Justices Moldaver and Wagner held that the Tribunal’s conclusion
that Stewart’s direct dependency was not a factor in his termination was
unreasonable. To show prima facie discrimination,
Stewart was not required to show that his termination was not caused by his
drug dependency, rather he had only to show that there was a connection between
the protected ground – his direct dependency – and the adverse effect.
His exercise of some control over his drug use merely reduced the extent to
which his dependency contributed to his termination. It did not eliminate
it as a factor in his termination.
The two justices found that notwithstanding these factors,
the Tribunal reasonably held that the employer had met its obligation to
accommodate Stewart to the point of undue hardship. Given the employer’s
safety objectives and responsibilities at the coal mine, it was crucial to
deter employees from using drugs in a manner that could negatively affect their
work performance and potentially lead to devastating consequences.
Subjecting Stewart to an individual assessment or imposing an unpaid suspension
for a limited period as a disciplinary measure instead of imposing the serious
and immediate consequence of termination of his employment would have
undermined the policies deterrent effect.
The Lone Dissenter
Justice Gascon viewed the matter much differently than did
the other 8 judges. His dissent is
logical and forceful. . He held
that although drug dependence is a protected ground of discrimination in human
rights law, stigma surrounding drug dependence – like the belief that
individuals suffering from it are the authors of their own misfortune or that
their concerns are less credible than those people suffering from other forms
of disability – sometimes impair the ability of courts and society to
objectively assess the merits of their discrimination claims. He held that
the improper considerations by the Tribunal effectively excluded Stewart from
the scope of human rights protections.
Justice Gascon held that a drug policy that automatically
terminates employees who use drugs prima facie discriminates against
individuals burdened by drug dependence. The legal threshold for prima
facie discrimination is whether the complainant’s protected ground is a
factor in the harm they suffer (this is also called “contribution”). In
this case, drug dependence was a factor in Stewart’s drug use, so the policy
under which Stewart’s employment was terminated for using drugs was prima facie discriminatory.
Justice Gascon ruled that the analysis of prima facie
discrimination and, in particular, contribution, is concerned with discriminatory
effect, not discriminatory intent. Contribution addresses the
relationship between an employee’s protected ground and harm, not between the
ground and the intent to harm that employee. A ground need only be at
least one of the factors linked to the employees harm. The Tribunal
unreasonably held that Stewart’s addiction did not contribute to his
termination based on four conceptual errors:
- It required Stewart to make prudent choices to avoid discrimination. Justice Gascon commented that requiring a complainant to be prudent in avoiding discrimination amounts to a sort of contributory fault defence in discrimination cases which places a burden on complainants to avoid discrimination, rather than on employers not to discriminate; it is irreconcilable with recently recognized statutory grounds that arguably implicate a complainant’s choices that are significant to their identity; generally contradicts the court’s rejection of drawing superficial distinctions between protected grounds and contact inextricably linked to those grounds; specifically contradicts the courts rejection of the view that choice makes drug users responsible for the harms of their drug use; re-enforces stigma by blaming marginalized communities for their choices; and substitutes the proper inquiry (i.e. whether drug-dependent individuals are adversely impacted by the policy) with an improper inquiry (whether drug dependent individuals are so overwhelmingly impacted by their addictions that any discrimination that they experience is caused exclusively by their addictions);
- The Tribunal limited Stewart’s protections to an assurance of formal equality. While both dependant and recreational drug users will receive similar treatment for violating the policy, only drug-dependent persons will uniquely and disproportionately struggle in complying with the terms of the policy.
- The Tribunal required Stewart to prove that he was treated arbitrarily or stereotypically, importing substantive consideration into the settled and low threshold for prima facie discrimination and shifting a justificatory burden from the employer onto the complainant; and
- The Tribunal at all times required Stewart to prove a causal relationship between his ground and harm, a higher bar than the mere “factor” threshold repeatedly adopted by the court. Justice Gascon held that prima facie discrimination should not be narrowly construed to preserve the enforceability of drug and alcohol policies. Doing so imports justificatory implications into the prima facie discrimination analysis and narrows the court’s recent jurisprudence that holds that terminating an employee for a reason related to addiction is precisely what it means for that addiction to be a factor in the employee’s harm.
Justice Gascon held that under the proper test, the evidence
before the Tribunal could not support its conclusion that Stewart’s drug
dependence did not contribute to his termination. His residual control
over his choices merely diminished the extent to which his dependence
contributed to his harm, it did not eliminate it as a factor.
A workplace policy that accommodates employees through
mechanisms which are either inaccessible by the employee due to their
disability or only applicable to the employee post-termination, cannot justify prima
facie discrimination. Reasonable accommodation requires that the
employer arrange the employee’s work place or duties to enable the employee to
do his or her work, if it can do so without undue hardship. In the human
rights context, it is not appropriate for the employer to forego individual
assessment in the interest of deterrence even in the safety-sensitive atmosphere
of this particular workplace and even though that environment motivates strict
drug policies.
Finally, Justice Gascon found that none of the employer’s
efforts at accommodating Stewart provided him with accessible accommodation
during his employment and those efforts failed to consider his individual
circumstances in a dignified manner. Accordingly, the employer could
not be said to have discharged its duty to accommodate Stewart as an employee
up to the point of undue hardship. As a result, the Tribunal’s findings
to the contrary were unreasonable.
Regards,
Blair
