HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO
B E T W E E N:
Abdalla Ali
Applicant
-and-
AVIS Budget Group and Ajmer Pabla
Respondents
INTERIM DECISION
Adjudicator: Mary Truemner
Indexed as: Ali v. AVIS Budget Group
1This is an Application filed on October 17, 2011 under section 34 of Part IV of the Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19, as amended (the “Code”). This Interim Decision deals with the issue of whether the Application should be deferred pending the completion of a related grievance proceeding.
2The applicant indicated in the Application that the facts of the Application are part of a union grievance proceeding that is still in progress, and enclosed a copy of the grievance filed on his behalf by the United Food and Commercial Workers’ Union (“the Union”).
3On January 16, 2012, the Tribunal issued a Notice of Intent to Defer the Application pending the resolution of the grievance procedure, and sent the Notice to the parties and to the Union, directing that any submissions on the issue of deferral must be filed with the Tribunal no later than February 15, 2012.
4Neither the applicant nor the Union filed submissions. The respondents filed submissions on February 15, 2012 in support of deferral on the basis that there is a substantial overlap between the subject matter of the grievance and the subject matter of the Application. The respondents state that the arbitration hearing recently concluded, and the parties are now waiting for the arbitrator’s decision.
ANALYSIS
5The grievance and the Application both arise out of the termination of the applicant’s employment on October 29, 2010. In the grievance, the allegation is simply, “Unjust termination without proper cause.” While the Application refers to several incidents of alleged violations of the Code since 2007, it identifies October 29, 2010 as the date of the last event of alleged discrimination, and provides a narrative that clearly identifies the termination as the culmination of the alleged discrimination.
6The Tribunal may defer consideration of an application, on such terms as it may determine, and on its own initiative (Rule 14.1). The Tribunal has stated that deferral is not automatically invoked simply because the parties are involved in other legal proceedings. It is a discretionary measure that the Tribunal exercises on the basis of the circumstances in each case. Absent good reason, applicants and respondents before the Tribunal are entitled to expect the Tribunal to take timely action to resolve complaints of discrimination brought before it.
7The Tribunal has generally deferred applications, howerever, where there is an ongoing grievance under a collective agreement based on the same facts and human rights issues. In explaining this approach, the Tribunal has referred to the fact that the Supreme Court of Canada has affirmed that grievance arbitrators have not only the power but also the responsibility to implement and enforce the substantive rights and obligations of human rights and other employment-related statutes as if they were part of the collective agreement. See Parry Sound (District) Social Services Administration Board v. O.P.S.E.U., Local 324, 2003 SCC 42.
8The Supreme Court thus confirmed that human rights tribunals are not the only decision-makers that can decide human rights claims. Where the parties are already engaged in a concurrent legal proceeding in which they are raising the same human rights issues before a decision-making body with the authority to make determinations about those issues, the orderly administration of justice favours deferral to the other proceeding. In such a scenario, the Tribunal’s normal approach is to defer to the other proceeding.
9In this case, it is apparent that there is substantial overlap between the facts and human rights issues covered by the Application and those referred to in the grievance. The matter is still live and the grievance process has not concluded.
ORDER
10The Application will therefore be deferred pending the completion of the grievance process. Rules 14.3 and 14.4 of the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure outline the procedure by which the Application may be brought back on after the conclusion of the grievance process.
Dated at Toronto, this 2^nd^ day of March, 2012.
”signed by”_______________
Mary Truemner
Vice-chair