View cases - Stewart McKelvey

73could accommodate Ms. Johnstone’s family responsibilities. The Tribunal therefore finds thatCBSA failed to establish that it could not accommodate Ms. Johnstone to the point of unduehardship.[359] This Tribunal confirmed with witnesses called by both the Complainant and theRespondent, as well as Respondent’s counsel, that none of the Draft Policy to Accommodate’sproposals, including the creation of a National Job Accommodation Fund, were ever put intoaction. The Respondent’s position throughout the hearing was that childcare responsibilities underany circumstances do not trigger a duty to accommodate under the family status discriminationgrounds of the Act. The Respondent therefore has no written policies on accommodation underthis provision of the Act, and its unwritten policies are as set out above: CBSA allows anemployee requesting static shifts for childcare responsibility reasons, to have static shifts off theVSSA, but mandates that such employee only work up to 34 hours per week on part-time status.2010 CHRT 20 (CanLII)[360] The importance of setting out the history in Part III of this decision is to allow anunderstanding that over an approximate 25 year period, the CHRT, the CHRC, and mechanismswithin the federal government public service (some internal to the Respondent itself), haverecognized a need to address work-life balance issues that naturally arise for some employeeswho are parents and have childcare obligations that are not compatible with the regularlyscheduled shifts set up by the VSSA or like regimes. Such childcare obligations have beenrecognized elsewhere, as set out, under the family status ground enumerated in the Act.[361] On the whole of the evidence, and by the admission of the Respondent’s witnesses insenior management, there have been no attempts to raise awareness of human rights legislationpertaining to family status among either management or employees, nor manage any perceived oractual resistance among those in the workforce who may not directly benefit fromaccommodation measures at any given time. The evidence of the Respondent’s managementwitnesses showed a very cursory, nominal understanding of human rights legislation and notraining or awareness of the details of the decision in Brown, or the CHRC audit referred toearlier, in their identification of childcare and child rearing as an identifier that warrantsaccommodation under the Act.