Alberta Human Rights Commission

The Alberta Human Rights Commission is a quasi-judicial human rights body in Alberta, Canada. It was established under the Alberta Human Rights Act. It is responsible for the reduction of discrimination "through the resolution and settlement of complaints of discrimination, and through human rights tribunal and court hearings."[1]

Controversial decisions

Mihaly v. The Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of Alberta

Since 1999, Ladislav Mihaly, who trained as an engineer in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s, has sought accreditation as an engineer in Alberta, but APEGA said that he did not meet its requirements. He refused to submit to any of the technical examinations but did take a required ethics examination—and failed it, twice. Almost a quarter of Alberta's engineers are immigrants who submitted to the same examinations that Mihaly refused or failed. In 2008, he took his case to the Alberta Human Rights Commission, which ruled in February 2014 that APEGA must pay Mihaly $10,000, provide him with a personal mentor and form a committee to re-evaluate his credentials.[2] APEGA successfully appealed the decision.[3]


Lund v Boissoin

On July 18, 2002, Dr. Darren Lund, a professor at the University of Calgary, filed a complaint against Reverend Stephen Boissoin and the Concerned Christian Coalition with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, alleging that Boisson's letter published in the Red Deer Advocate, stating "Where homosexuality flourishes, all manner of wickedness abounds" and "Homosexual rights activists and those that defend them, are just as immoral as the pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps that plague our communities",[4] constituted discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, as prohibited by Alberta's Human Rights, Citizenship and Multiculturalism Act[5] A one-member Alberta Human Rights Panel accepted Lund's arguments that the letter was "likely to expose homosexuals to hatred and/or contempt." The Canadian Civil Liberties Association intervened in the case, condemning the views expressed in the letter but arguing they should not be subject to legal sanction.

On May 30, 2008, the Alberta Human Rights Panel ordered Boissoin and the Concerned Christian Coalition to refrain from publishing future disparaging remarks about homosexuals and provide Lund with a written apology and in $5,000 damages.[6]

On December 3, 2009, the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta overturned the decision of the Alberta Human Rights Panel. The Court found that the contents of the letter did not violate the Alberta Human Rights Act, and that the remedies which had been imposed were either unlawful or unconstitutional. The Court also identified "troubling aspects of the process leading to the decision of the Panel," including the inclusion of the Concerned Christian Coalition as a respondent.[4] In October 2012, the Court of Appeal of Alberta upheld the decision and agreed with the lower court that Boissoin’s letter was "a polemic on a matter of public interest and does not qualify as reaching the extreme limits... to expose persons to hatred or contempt," within the meaning of the Alberta Human Rights Act.[7][8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ About the Alberta Human Rights Commission
  2. ↑ "Mihaly v. The Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta, 2014 AHRC 1". CANLII. February 6, 2014. Retrieved 9 August 2014.
  3. ↑ "APEGA's Appeal of Mihaly Decision Succeeds" (Press release). APEGA. 2016-01-27. Retrieved 2016-06-23.
  4. 1 2 Boissoin v. Lund, 2009 ABQB 592 (CanLII).
  5. ↑ Lund v. Boissoin, 2007 AHRC 11 (CanLII).
  6. ↑ Lund v. Boissoin, 2008 AHRC 6 (CanLII)
  7. ↑ http://www.xtra.ca/blog/national/post/2010/04/12/Stephen-Boissoin-back-in-court-over-anti-gay-letter.aspx
  8. ↑ Lund v. Boissoin, 2012 ABCA 300 (CanLII).

External links

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