View cases - Stewart McKelvey

25grade 6 and will be reaching a major milestone in her life, she will graduate fromthe elementary school, where she has enjoyed her entire education, with her friendsshe has grown up with… My son is in grade 5 and is enjoying one of the bestacademic year of his education, where his improvement is substantial, he too ishighly involved…. It should be noted that this is not an issue of finding appropriatechild care. In accordance with the ruling of the Queen’s Bench Court of Alberta, Iprovide primary residence for the two aforementioned children, with joint custodywith their Father who lives in Jasper. This carries stipulations regarding taking mychildren away from their father, especially out of the province, including a ninetyday written notice so it has time to be ruled upon by a judge. Their father takes avery active role in their lives and will not stand by and let me take the children away,especially with a court order providing for his rights. According to legal counsel,it would be highly unlikely that a judge would rule to uproot the children due to theinstability of this situation…In your deliberation regarding this particular situation,I would ask for your compassion for my children as well as for two of your employees[herself and her husband]…based on the aforementioned reasons I would askthat CN grant me a compassionate leave of absence, from protecting the shortage inVancouver, due to my legal requirements to remain in Jasper.2010 CHRT 24 (CanLII)[106] Mr. Torchia testified that when he received this letter he contacted CMC and instructedthem to grant the Complainant an extension of time. He added that at this time, he was aware thatthree (3) employees at the Jasper terminal were looking for “accommodation” for “very similarreasons”. He added that he had received another letter prior to this one from Kasha Whyte andthat is how he had been made aware of the situation. He said that he came to the conclusion,although he had never spoken with them, that what they needed was more time to makearrangements.[107] Mr. Torchia’s evidence in regard to speaking to Ms. Storms is consistent with theinformation on the CMC spreadsheets. In his evidence, he said that he had given the Complainantand the two other women a 30 day extension. The notations on the spreadsheets for “May2/05 at17:00”, “May 19/05 at 10:30” and May 19/05 at 17:00”, indicate for all three women“Child care – temporarily on hold per Joe Torchia.”[108] According to Mr. Torchia, it is unusual for these types of questions to go directly to him.He added that employees making these kinds of request would normally address them to theirsupervisor. The supervisor would handle these demands directly and they would rarely rise to“his level”. But, on cross-examination, he testified that even if the Complainant had gone to her