Municipal lawyers claim discrimination by City of Toronto
Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario allows part of claim to proceed
Three lawyers in the City of Toronto’s prosecutions unit will get a full hearing on discrimination complaints against their employer after the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario ruled at least some of their allegations were made in time.
Between them, Richard Raczkowski , Ingrid Benjamin and Evangeline Fernandez allege discrimination on the basis of race, ethnic origin, sex and age prevented them from securing promotion to “solicitor” positions within the unit, which handles prosecution of charges laid by city staff or police under municipal by-laws and certain provincial statues, including the Highway Traffic Act.
According to the HRTO ruling, the lawyers cited their rejection in several hiring drives for the scarce solicitor roles between 2010 and 2018 as evidence of discrimination, alleging the prosecution unit’s director manipulated the recruitment process to ensure her own preferred candidates got the jobs – to the exclusion of senior and visible-minority members of staff.
The unproven claims have yet to be tested at the tribunal.
Benjamin, who self-identifies as a female black Canadian from the West Indies, was born in 1959, while Fernandez, born in 1961, self-identifies as a female and Filipino. Each speaks with an accent, and alleges discrimination on the basis of race, ethnic origin, and sex in addition to age.
Raczkowski, who was born in 1950 and self-identifies as a white male, alleges discrimination on the basis of age only, claiming the solicitor hires were younger, more inexperienced and less qualified than him.
The interim HRTO decision says that both Raczkowski and Benjamin served six-month terms in temporary solicitor roles covering for a senior member of staff on a leave of absence in 2014, but neither could make the promotion permanent the following year when an opening arose for two bilingual lawyers with at least two years of experience.
According to the ruling, the applicants claim that the two younger white males who secured the 2015 promotions were the only people in the unit who could meet the bilingual requirement, and questioned the need for the stipulation, considering the small number of prosecutions requiring French-speaking solicitors.
The applicants also pointed to the 2016 hiring of two more younger while males to solicitor positions, claiming that they each had more experience than the successful candidates, including one who they alleged was groomed for the position by a senior member of the unit.
Finally, in November 2017, a younger female prosecutor was hired to a solicitor posting which the applicants allege had virtually no requirements attached, including for experience. They claim the successful candidate was also groomed by senior members of the unit when she was appointed to head up a project the previous year without a competition.
Allegations relating to a further hiring round in 2010 were dismissed in HRTO member Marla Burstyn’s interim decision after she found the applicant lawyers waited too long to complain.
The city actually wanted allegations related to all but the 2017 incident dismissed for missing the one-year deadline to launch a claim under the province’s Human Rights Code, but Burstyn was satisfied that the 2015 and 2016 hirings shared “sufficient connection” with the 2017 allegations to be considered timely as part of a “series of incidents.”
“Therefore, these allegations of discrimination will continue in the Tribunal process,” Burstyn concluded.
Counsel for the City of Toronto declined an opportunity to comment.
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