The Income Security Advocacy Centre and Lake Country Community Legal Clinic jointly represented an Indigenous Elder in a legal challenge to the discrimination and wrongful termination he experienced while working as an Elder for the Correctional Service Canada.
The Elder is Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) of Ohsweken (Six Nations) territory. He was hired to work as an Elder/Cultural Advisor in the Indigenous “Pathways Program.” While working in a penitentiary, he experienced continuous racism, discrimination, harassment and a hostile work environment. He was regularly subjected to derogatory comments from other staff and managers, including being mistaken as an inmate despite clearly wearing identification as an Elder. He brought his concerns to his managers, but no action was taken.
After months of unfair treatment, the Elder was told that a correctional officer had accused him of misconduct. He strongly rejected the accusation and wanted to defend himself. Instead of being given a chance to respond, he was marched out of the penitentiary and was fired a few weeks later.
The clinics worked with the Elder to challenge this mistreatment through both a civil lawsuit and a human rights complaint at the Canadian Human Rights Commission, both of which were started in June 2018.
In the course of the civil lawsuit, Correctional Service Canada refused to provide key security camera footage that it relied on in terminating him. The legal clinics brought a motion for production of the video footage at the Ontario Superior Court of Justice and were successful in obtaining an order to provide it to the Elder.
With respect to the human rights complaint, the Canadian Human Rights Commission referred the complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal for a full hearing on the merits. This decision followed a lengthy investigation process by the Commission that took nearly four years, during which time both parties provided submissions on multiple issues, and the respondent unsuccessfully raised various grounds for deferral or dismissal of the complaint.
Both the civil lawsuit and the human rights complaint were successfully settled in 2022. However, the issues raised continue to be a concern for Indigenous persons working in correctional services. Other former Indigenous employees of Correctional Service Canada have brought a proposed class action at the Federal Court of Canada, alleging systemic racism within the CSC workplace.