Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Grounds for Complaint
The Northwest Territories Human Rights Act protects people from discrimination in employment, public services, tenancy, membership in a trade union or professional association, and in publications. The act also protects against harassment based on a protected ground, or retaliation for participating in a complaint. The protected grounds under the act are listed on page 20 of the annual report.
A single complaint may allege discrimination on more than one ground. Disability is the most common ground for complaint, ten complaints alleged discrimination on the basis of disability in 2014-2015. Race was the next most common ground for complaint, and was alleged as the basis for eight complaints.
Adjudication
Complaints that cannot be dismissed at an early stage or resolved through mediation are referred to the adjudication panel for a hearing. The panel may determine if discrimination occurred and decide on an appropriate remedy. The adjudication panel started the year with 10 outstanding files: six complaints and four appeals of the director's decision. There were six new complaints referred by the director.
The adjudication panel decided one complaint and one appeal in 2014-2015. One appeal was withdrawn, leaving the panel with 13 files outstanding at year-end. All hearings are public and can be viewed at the adjudication panel's website at http://hrap.nt.ca.
Comprehensive review of the NWT Human Rights Act
The Human Rights Commission contracted an independent review of the Human Rights Act which came into force in 2004. The outcome of that work is detailed in a report by J.J. Llewellyn, J.G. Sinclair and G.J. Hashey titled "Northwest Territories Human Rights Act Comprehensive Review." This report, posted on the commission's website, recommends moving from a strictly formal, judicially-based approach, which has a tendency to be adversarial and costly, to one that is more restorative in nature.
A restorative approach considers the whole context of an issue and encourages those involved to work together on a solution rather than assigning blame. In this way, a restorative approach provides an opportunity for the parties to repair their relationship and to build compassion, empathy and mutual respect.
During the discussion that took place at the public meeting, Mr. Dent advised the Committee that another key change the commission would like to see made to the Human Rights Act involves amending the act to allow the commission to be more proactive in identifying and addressing cases of systemic discrimination.
The committee expressed its general support for changes to the system that would make the process more accessible, particularly for disadvantaged member of the population who may not have the resources to hire legal representation. The committee looks forward to seeing the introduction of a bill in the Legislative Assembly that modernizes and updates the Human Rights Act.
Recommendation 1
The Standing Committee on Government Operations recommends that the Government of the Northwest Territories advise the House of its timeline for the completion and introduction of a bill to modernize and update the Human Rights Act. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would now like to hand off to my colleague, Mr. Nakimayak.