Time Immortal

The human rights commissions are like some kind of perverse “gift that keeps on giving” in terms of what new depths of stupidity their rulings seem to sink to.

Consider the case of one Paul Lane and the Canadian Department of National Defence:

In 2001, a man named Paul Lane was interviewed for a job with an Ottawa consulting firm, ADGA, to test artillery software for a Department of National Defence contract. It was a highly specialized desk job involving tight deadlines and high stress. No problem, he said, and he was hired.

What he neglected to mention was that he suffered from bipolar disorder - a serious mental illness that was easily triggered by workplace stress. He also understated the number of sick days he’d taken in the previous year. (In fact, he had parted company with one previous employer when his illness got the better of him, and had filed a job discrimination complaint with the Human Rights Commission.

The case was settled, on terms that weren’t disclosed.) When he filled out ADGA’s employment equity survey, which asked if he had a mental disability, he said no.

A couple of days after he started work, he asked his boss to monitor him for inappropriate behaviour, which he attributed to “emotional abuse” in previous jobs. Soon after that, he told her he had bipolar disorder and said he was susceptible to manic episodes that might require him to take as much as three months off work. Then he started having paranoid delusions and stopped functioning entirely.

Like all employees, Mr. Lane had been hired on 90 days’ probation.

On Day 8, the firm decided to cut its losses and cordially told him it was letting him go. Given the nature of its work, there was no way to reassign him.

Mr. Lane complained to the Ontario’s Human Rights Commission, saying the company had failed in its duty to accommodate his mental disability. After several years of unsuccessful mediation, the case went to a tribunal hearing, which announced its verdict in December.

The tribunal awarded Mr. Lane $34,278.75 in lost wages, $10,000 for “reckless infliction of mental anguish” and $35,000 for “violation of his inherent right to be free from discrimination.” It also ruled that the company must hire a consultant to provide all employees with human-rights training. The HRC trumpeted the verdict as a “landmark” decision for the rights of the mentally disabled.

Let’s briefly re-cap: Mr. Lane lies about his having bipolar disorder to get the job in the first place, works just over a week before being incapacitated by his bipolar disorder (did the Reader get the part where his job involved testing artillery software — how do we suppose one does that, exactly?), and is let go because a) he lied about his condition to get the job and b) like most employees at most companies, he was on a 90-day probationary period in which the company needs to give next to no reason to dismiss an employee anyhow.

And then, after lying about his bipolar disorder on his job application, he has the temerity to file a human rights complaint claiming that the company (whom, again, he lied to and told that he had no mental disorder) had done nothing to “accommodate his mental disability.”

And the HRC sided with him in his complaint (there’s that 100% “conviction” rate again…) against ADGA.

That is what we’re seeing here, isn’t it, O Reader?

What exactly is the role of the HRCs in Canada? To protect human rights? To censor? To conspire with every designated victim group against the nation’s private corporations, even when the relevant member(s) of the aforementioned designated victim groups are completely at fault for the fate that befell them, as was the case with Mr. Lane? I sympathize with the fact that he has bipolar disorder, which is unfortunate…but why did he lie on his job application, then? Why did he say that he could handle the stress of working in a “high octane” consulting job when, in fact, he couldn’t handle himself properly after just two days? And why does he feel he is now entitled to monetary compensation for having been a liar?

These commissions need to go. They are nothing short of a menace.

Update: Welcome, Steynians!