Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan Citation: Saskatchewan Human Rights

In short, the Commission submits that the Chambers judge erred by interpreting the provision in a manner completely at odds with its grammatical and ordinary meaning, the object and purpose of the Code, the related provisions in the Code, and the legislative history of s. [...] 35 of the Code is to provide the mechanism for a complaint to be set down for a hearing in the Court of King’s Bench and to provide for the procedure by which the hearing is to be conducted. [...] 29.7(4) of the [1979] Code which states: 29.7(4) The court is entitled to receive and accept evidence led for the purpose of establishing a pattern or practice of resistance to or disregard or denial of any of the rights secured by this Act, and the court is entitled to place any reliance that it considers appropriate on the evidence and on any pattern or practice disclosed by the evidence in arri. [...] The provision is otherwise drafted in a very broad manner, permitting a party to attempt to tender such evidence, and the court to admit it, for the purpose of the Commission establishing that the subject of the complaint has engaged in a “pattern or practice of resistance to or disregard or denial of any of the rights” in question in this matter. [...] This position ignores the numerous reasons why parties might settle a complaint, including a negative assessment of the risk of liability, the risk of a potentially large quantum of damages, certainty regarding the remedy in the specific matter, the minimization of bad publicity, bringing an end to a dispute that may be causing disharmony in the workplace, and the unlikelihood that a similar claim.