View cases - Stewart McKelvey

Health Sciences Assoc. of B.C. v. Campbell Riverand North Island Transition Society Page 20and I am unable to find in it any useful definition of thescope of family status in human rights legislation.[37] The Supreme Court of Canada did deal with the concept offamily status in human rights legislation in B., supra, and inCanada (Attorney General) v. Mossop, [1993] 1 S.C.R. 554. InB. the majority of the court upheld the decision of theOntario Court of Appeal that family status did encompass2004 BCCA 260 (CanLII)discrimination claims based on the particular identity of thecomplainant’s child. Mossop was a bereavement leave claim andturned on whether family status included a homosexualrelationship. The majority determined that it did not.Neither case addressed the question of whether family statusincludes parental or other family obligations.[38] The parties have cited no other cases that assist inproviding a working definition of the parameters of theconcept of family status as the term is used in the Code. Inmy opinion, it cannot be an open-ended concept as urged by theappellant for that would have the potential to causedisruption and great mischief in the workplace; nor, in thecontext of the present case, can it be limited to “the statusof being a parent per se” as found by the arbitrator (and asargued by the respondent on this appeal) for that would notaddress serious negative impacts that some decisions of