The complainant, a nurse with clinical depression and fibromyalgia, filed a human rights complaint alleging the College of Nurses of Ontario discriminated against her by placing conditions on her certificates of registration.
The College brought a request to dismiss the complaint under section 45.1 of the Human Rights Code, arguing that the Health Professions Appeal and Review Board (HPARB) had already appropriately dealt with the substance of the complaint, and that the complaint was an abuse of process.
The Tribunal denied the request to dismiss, finding that HPARB failed to appropriately apply human rights principles, specifically the duty to accommodate to the point of undue hardship as set out in Meiorin, and failed to address the issue of adverse impact discrimination.
The Tribunal also rejected the College's arguments regarding adjudicative immunity, deliberative secrecy, collateral attack, and lack of jurisdiction, allowing the complaint to proceed on its merits.
