Case information

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In November 1991, the Respondent Canadian Union of Public Employees, Airline Division (“CUPE”) submitted a complaint to the Respondent Canadian Human Rights Commission (“CHRC”) on behalf of the Flight Attendants working at Canadian Airlines International Limited and the Appellant Air Canada. Canadian Airlines International Limited is not participating in this application. The Appellant employs approximately 3,700 CUPE members, of whom 80 per cent are female. The complaint against the Appellant alleged that Air Canada discriminated against the predominantly female Flight Attendants group.

In its initial investigation, the CHRC found that the comparator groups identified in the complaint were predominantly male. It concluded that the salaries for Flight Attendants were lower than for some of the male groups. The Appellant maintained that the employee groups referred to in the complaint worked in different establishments, that there was no common wage or personnel policy amongst the employee groups, and that the policies, which were distinctly established for each group, were the product of separate negotiations and collective agreements. The CHRC recommended that a Tribunal be appointed.

Interpreting s. 11 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. H-6, the Tribunal found that Flight Attendants were not in the same establishment as the comparator groups identified in the complaint because the different collective agreements amounted to different personnel and wage policies. Dismissing the Respondents’ application for judicial review, the Federal Court, Trial Division found that the Tribunal’s interpretation of s. 11 was correct and that the Tribunal had committed no reviewable error in reaching its decision. The Federal Court of Appeal allowed the Respondents’ appeal, finding that s. 10 of the Equal Wages Guidelines, 1986 SOR/86-1082, did not preclude comparisons between bargaining units and that collective agreements did not constitute “personnel and wage policies”.