Meiorin case
| British Columbia (Public Service Employee Relations Commission) v British Columbia Government Service Employees' Union | |
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| Hearing: February 22, 1999 Judgment: September 9, 1999 |
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| Full case name | The British Columbia Government and Service Employees’ Union v. The Government of the Province of British Columbia as represented by the Public Service Employee Relations Commission |
| Citations | [1999] 3 S.C.R. 3; (1999), 176 D.L.R. (4th) 1; [1999] 10 W.W.R. 1; (1999), 35 C.H.R.R. 257; (1999), 46 C.C.E.L. (2d) 206; (1999), 68 C.R.R. (2d) 1; (1999), 66 B.C.L.R. (3d) 253 |
| Docket No. | 26274 |
| Prior history | Judgment for the Public Service Employee Relations Commission in the British Columbia Court of Appeal. |
| Ruling | Appeal allowed |
| Holding | |
| There is a three-step process for determining if an employer can establish that a discriminatory standard is an occupational requirement: (1) The standard must be rationally connected to performance of the job, (2) The employer adopted the standard in an honest and good-faith manner, and (3) The standard is reasonably necessary to accomplish the legitimate work-related purpose. | |
| Court Membership | |
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Chief Justice: Antonio Lamer Puisne Justices: Claire L'Heureux-Dubé, Charles Gonthier, Peter Cory, Beverley McLachlin, Frank Iacobucci, John C. Major, Michel Bastarache, Ian Binnie |
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| Reasons given | |
| Unanimous reasons by | McLachlin J. |
British Columbia (Public Service Employee Relations Commission) v British Columbia Government Service Employees' Union [1999] 3 S.C.R. 3, 1999 SCC 48 – called Meiorin for short – is a Supreme Court of Canada case that created a unified test to determine if a violation of human rights legislation can be justified as a bona fide occupational requirement (BFOR).
Before Meiorin, Human Rights violations were treated in one of two ways; either as direct discrimination pursuant to the analysis in Ontario Human Rights Commission v. Borough of Etobicoke [1982] 1 S.C.R. 202, or as adverse effects discrimination pursuant to the analysis in O'Malley v. Simpson-Sears [1985] 2 S.C.R. 536. Academic writing deeply criticized this bifurcation of analysis as arbitrary and unhelpful in protecting equality rights. With the Meiorin case, the court decided to confront this criticism and refashion the analysis.
Tawney Meiorin was employed as a firefighter by the British Columbia Ministry of Forests. Three years after being hired, the government adopted a series of fitness tests that all employees were required to pass. She passed all the tests except for one that required her to run 2.5 km in 11 minutes. After four attempts, her best time was 49.4 s over the maximum allowed. As a result, she was fired.
Though the fitness tests had a valid purpose of ensuring safety, the court found that the research that the tests were based on was incomplete and "impressionistic" and did not take into account the differences between men and women in establishing a standard.
To reach this conclusion, the court examined the previous methods of analyzing Human Rights violations, noting where they were deficient, and then proposed a new "Meiorin Test" to which the current facts are applied.
McLachlin J. (as she was then) noted that the greatest deficiency in having two different approaches is that one afforded a greater amount of remedy than the other which provoked parties to abuse this distinction. There was the further problem that it had the overall effect of legitimizing systemic discrimination. As well, it created a dissonance between Human Rights analysis and Charter analysis.
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