Complaints of anti-Black racism at human rights commission to face Senate scrutiny

The Senate will launch a study next week probing complaints of racism at the Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC).

Sen. Thomas Bernard, deputy chair of the Red Chamber's human rights committee, said that ever since CBC News first reported complaints of workplace discrimination made by Black and racialized employees of the CHRC, she's been hearing from people who have lost trust in the institution.

"Many people who've reached out to me to talk about this since the news broke have been saying things like, 'I've lost all confidence,'" she told CBC News.

In March, the federal government reported that the Canadian Human Rights Commission had discriminated against its Black and racialized employees. The government's human resources arm, the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat (TBCS), came to that conclusion after nine employees filed a grievance through their unions in October 2020.

Their grievance alleged that "Black and racialized employees at the CHRC face systemic anti-Black racism, sexism and systemic discrimination."

CBC News obtained the TBCS's March ruling, reviewed associated documents and spoke to a group of current and former commission employees.

They described what they called a hostile and racially charged workplace where Black and racialized employees are excluded from career and training opportunities and are shut out of formal and informal networks.

They claim the careers of Black and racialized employees remain stagnant while white colleagues advance and say the ranks of senior management remain predominantly white.

The current and former employees who spoke to CBC say their health has suffered as a result of workplace discrimination.

Employees also flagged the high dismissal rate for race-based complaints — an assertion the CHRC's own data backs up — and said all-white teams are typically assigned to investigate them.

Sen. Thomas Bernard, a social worker from Nova Scotia, said she has heard concerns about how the commission processes complaints for some time.

Those concerns echo complaints raised by the Canadian Association of Labour Lawyers, the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers and the Canadian Bar Association. CBC obtained letters from each of the associations that were sent to Justice Minister David Lametti.

"The Senate human rights committee will be studying this because we feel it's really important. We feel that we need to unpack this a little bit more," Thomas Bernard said. "And then out of that, we will determine what should happen next."

One of the employees who went public with her experience at the commission said she welcomes the study.