After 8 years, 4 courts, Kamloops mom has to start human rights case all over

New mother Lisa Harvey just wanted the BC Human Rights Tribunal to decide if her employer could deny her and her husband alternating shifts to better care for their baby.

It could have set precedence.

Only now, after eight years in litigation, the Kamloops woman’s child is nine years old, the case has been through four different levels of appeal without ever hearing its merits and she learned last month her latest success only means she has to start from the very beginning.

Over the last eight years, the file has bounced from court to court, with appeals and challenges. iNFOnews.ca wasn’t able to reach Harvey, but she told the court she was concerned about the financial burden the legal action had had on her and her family. 

Justice Veronica Jackson also noted the BC Human Rights Tribunal is “intended to facilitate just and timely resolution of human rights complaints.”

That’s clearly not what happened.

The case dates back to 2018, when Harvey worked as a journeyman welder at the Gibraltar mine north of Williams Lake.

Her husband also worked there, and the two did 12-hour shifts together.

After she had her child and returned to work from maternity leave, the couple tried to change their work schedules to accommodate childcare. 

However, Gibraltar Mines refused, offering that the couple work opposing 12-hour shifts.

Harvey then launched her complaint against the company arguing it discriminated against her based on sex, marital status and family status.

The mining giant applied to have the case dismissed, and the Human Rights Tribunal sided with them on the sex and marital status aspects.

However, the Tribunal ruled the company may have discriminated against her based on family status and that the matter should go to a hearing to be heard.

While a hearing would have settled the matter, the company instead filed for a judicial review at the BC Supreme Court. It won the case, but the Human Rights Tribunal then successfully appealed.

At the time, BC Human Rights Commissioner Kasari Govender called it a “significant win for gender equality.”

“What followed next is not fully clear… but it appears, for reasons unexplained, that nothing happened,” Justice Jackson said in her recent ruling, referring to the delays as “baffling.”

“The hearing of the complaint before the Tribunal has been scheduled and rescheduled multiple times, to accommodate all that has flowed from the Judicial Review Proceeding. I anticipate (Harvey’s) child is school age by now,” the Justice said.

In the recent court ruling, the Justice dismissed the company’s application for another judicial review and sent the case back to the Human Rights Tribunal for a full hearing. The same place it was in 2018.

There’s no time frame given for how long a hearing will take, but Harvey’s child might well be a teenager before the Tribunal makes a final ruling. 

Lisa Harvey was not immediately available for comment.