Armorer v. Family Responsibility Office, 2012 HRTO 731

HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO

B E T W E E N:

Peter Armorer

Applicant

-and-

Family Responsibility Office and Freida Clarke

Respondents

decision

Adjudicator: Keith Brennenstuhl

Date: April 12, 2012

Citation: 2012 HRTO 731

Indexed as: Armorer v. Family Responsibility Office

APPEARANCES

Peter Armorer, Applicant ) Self-represented

Family Responsibility Office ) and Freida Clarke, Respondents ) Sharlene Ziniuk, Counsle )

1This is an Application under section 34 of Part IV of the Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.19 as amended, (the “Code”) alleging discrimination in the area of services on the basis of sex, family status and marital status as well as reprisal.

2By Case Assessment Direction dated November 14, 2011, the Tribunal directed that a summary hearing be held by teleconference. It stated as follows at paragraph 4:

The Tribunal’s Registrar will schedule a half-day summary hearing by teleconference. The applicant will proceed first during the summary hearing. The applicant shall make argument about why the Application should not be dismissed as having no reasonable prospect of success, and point to how he can show discrimination on a balance of probabilities.

ANALYSIS

Summary Hearings

3The summary hearing process is outlined in Rule 19A of the Tribunal’s Rules of Procedure. In a summary hearing, the issue is whether an Application should be dismissed in whole or in part on the basis that there is no reasonable prospect that the Application or a part thereof will succeed.

4In Dabic v. Windsor Police Service, 2010 HRTO 1994 at paras. 8-10, the Tribunal made the following observations on the type of inquiry that may be involved in a summary hearing:

In some cases, the issue at the summary hearing may be whether, assuming all the allegations in the application to be true, it has a reasonable prospect of success. In these cases, the focus will generally be on the legal analysis and whether what the applicant alleges may be reasonably considered to amount to a Code violation.

In other cases, the focus of the summary hearing may be on whether there is a reasonable prospect that the applicant can prove, on a balance of probabilities, that his or her Code rights were violated. Often, such cases will deal with whether the applicant can show a link between an event and the grounds upon which he or she makes the claim. The issue will be whether there is a reasonable prospect that evidence the applicant has or that is reasonably available to him or her can show a link between the event and the alleged prohibited ground.

In considering what evidence is reasonably available to the applicant, the Tribunal must be attentive to the fact that in some cases of alleged discrimination, information about the reasons for the actions taken by a respondent are within the sole knowledge of the respondent. Evidence about the reasons for actions taken by a respondent may sometimes come through the disclosure process and through cross-examination of the people involved. The Tribunal must consider whether there is a reasonable prospect that such evidence may lead to a finding of discrimination. However, when there is no reasonable prospect that any such evidence could allow the applicant to prove his or her case on a balance of probabilities, the application must be dismissed following the summary hearing.

Application to the Facts

5The applicant’s involvement with the Family Responsibility Office (“FRO”) and the personal respondent, an employee of FRO, is the result of a series of Orders of the Ontario Court of Justice to the effect that the applicant and his wife were to share joint custody of their child, with child support and more recently spousal support orders made against the applicant. The applicant takes umbrage with the manner in which the FRO went about enforcing the Orders and alleges that the FRO’s conduct was discriminatory. In the narrative of the Application he writes:

In summary, the FRO respondents continually failed to provide basic service when they refused to respond to my written requests for explanations, payment statements, etc. Furthermore, they repeatedly violated their own legislated regulations/ by not holding my legally bound & registered income source employer responsible for moneys (primarily alimony) already deducted at my pay source, as per my employer’s testimony to them, bank records etc. Instead they immediately looked past my employer and on one occasion took out multiple writs (some possibly still undisclosed) of asset seizure solely against me and without any due process.

6He attributes the FRO’s conduct to an anti-male bias. To support this contention he cited statistics from various organizations, including those of “Fathers & Families”, a family–court reform organization in Boston, which he claims demonstrates that government enforcement agencies “disproportionately target males (gender equivalent of racial profiling)”.

7In addition he writes; “as a separated/divorcing person I expect the FRO to serve me in a minimally respectable manner and adhere to the law and regulations when providing their public government services…”. Moreover, he alleges that he suffered reprisal in the form of harsher treatment when he threatened to lodge complaints against the FRO with human rights organizations.

8Other than the facts that he is a man, is separated and has a daughter, the applicant failed to point to any evidence that would link the FRO’s action to his sex, his family or marital status. While he did point to statistics that he claims demonstrate anti-male bias trends in family law matters, they are of little relevance since they are hearsay and they do not establish that the applicant himself faced discrimination at the hands of the FRO. As noted in Mangal v. Molson Toronto Brewery, 2011 HRTO 575, in a claim of discrimination that is not made under s. 11 of the Code, the applicant must establish that he was treated differently from others because of a personal characteristic protected by the Code.

9The applicant indicated that he suffered reprisal at the hands of the respondents when he threatened to lodge complaints with various human rights organizations. The reprisal was allegedly in the form of harsher treatment and continued harassment “in opposition to their own law & regulation”. Section 8 of the Code reads:

Every person has a right to claim and enforce his or her rights under this Act, to institute and participate in proceedings under this Act and to refuse to infringe a right of another person under this Act, without reprisal or threat of reprisal for so doing.

This section, however, only applies to actions that are intended as reprisal for asserting one’s human rights. The applicant failed to point to any evidence whatsoever that could establish such intention and a link to the respondents’ alleged actions.

Order

10I find that the Application has no reasonable prospect of success. In my view, the interactions between the applicant and the respondents are not related in any way to discrimination based on sex or any other grounds under the Code.

11The Application is dismissed.