Mr. Chairman, Thank you very much. The Report on the Review of the 2004-2005 Annual Report of the Human Rights Commission. The introduction was read into the public record during the sitting of the House.

Recommendations

The report includes two specific recommendations for amendments to the act.

Systemic Remedies

The first recommendation is to amend the act to explicitly allow the Human Rights Adjudication Panel to order systemic remedies in addition to remedies to address the situation of individual complainants. Systemic remedies might include requiring an organization to implement employment equity or to change policies that have resulted in discrimination. The report cites the persistence of unequal pay for work of equal value between men and women as an example of systemic discrimination. In such a case, providing compensation or another remedy to one individual complainant would not address the overall issue or assist others being subjected to the same discrimination by the same employer.

The witnesses also suggested there is an inherent contradiction in the act in that it currently allows the commission to initiate complaints, which in practice it would most likely do in a case of systemic discrimination, but does not allow the adjudication panel to grant the corresponding remedies.

The committee was made aware that some other Canadian jurisdictions explicitly allow for systemic remedies in their human rights legislation and that in other jurisdictions the courts have interpreted the acts as allowing for systemic remedies even though they do not explicitly grant this power.

While the committee does not necessarily disagree with the recommendation, we would like to be assured that it would not have unforeseen implications beyond those identified by the commission. We would also point out that our act is as yet new and untested and that it may be more appropriate to revisit this recommendation after we have gained a few years' experience and established our own precedents.

Recommendation

The Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight recommends the GNWT review the implications and advisability of including systemic remedies in the Human Rights Act and report back on its findings in its response to this report.