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Taking diversity seriously: Religious associations and work-related discrimination 103
‘messages’ (values, beliefs, knowledge) depends on the fitness of the ‘medium’
(the teacher).
La Forest J adds: 133
By their conduct, teachers as ‘medium' must be perceived to uphold the
values, beliefs and knowledge sought to be transmitted by the school system.
The conduct of a teacher is evaluated on the basis of his or her position, rather
than whether the conduct occurs within the classroom or beyond … teachers
do not necessarily check their teaching hats at the school yard gate and may
be perceived to be wearing their teaching hats even off duty.
If it is true that teachers transmit beliefs and moral values through their
example, then it would appear that Basson J's contention in (6) above is
incorrect, since even those teachers in a religious school who are not
involved in religious instruction may exert an influence over children
which is ‘bad’ from the perspective of the church.
Basson J may be mistaken to assert (3) above: that the position of a
teacher involved in the teaching of a non-religious subject is analogous to
those of employees like typists. The position of a teacher is not analogous
to a typist in one crucial respect, which was expressed by the Ottawa Board
of Enquiry in a matter concerning a complaint arising from the refusal of
the Catholic School Board of Ottawa to engage a non-Catholic as a
secretary for clerical duties in the school administration: In the Matter of the
Ontario Human Rights Code and In the Matter of the Complaint of Mrs Bonnie
Gore. McIntyre J in Caldwell quotes from the decision in that matter as
follows: 134
I cannot see how a secretary can be expected to provide an example for the
children. This is surely the responsibility of teachers, and the religious aspect
is the responsibility of the ecclesiastics as well as most of the teachers. The
secretary performs secretarial and clerical functions. Requiring that she be a
Roman Catholic is not, in my opinion, a ‘reasonable occupational
qualification’.
As McIntyre J notes, the Gore decision ‘recognised the special nature of the
Catholic school, but concluded that the clerical worker would not have
that degree of contact with the pupils that would make it essential in the
interests of the church to have a Catholic in such position’. 135
Typists do not stand in the same relation of authority and mentorship
relative to pupils as teachers do. The work of typists in a religious school is
to type; the work of teachers in a religious school includes transmitting the
beliefs and values of the school, didactically in the case of those involved
133 Ross (n 130 above) para 44 (my emphasis).
134
Caldwell (n 92 above) 619.
135 Caldwell (n 92 above) 620.