Question

During his job interview, Zhou mentioned that he was recovering from an addiction to cocaine. The employer refused to proceed with the interview because the position being applied for was in a safety-sensitive area. Zhou filed an application with the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.

a. What is the alleged ground of discrimination?

b. Does Zhou have a prima facae case? Be sure you identify each of the three parts of the test and identify whether Zhou meets the test and how.

c. In your opinion, did the employer contravene the Code? Explain your answer including exactly what the employer did which may have contributed to unfair discrimination.

d. Assuming the employer did not want to contravene the code, how should it have conducted the interview?

Answer 1

a..Discriminatin based on drug abuse history.The recruit will place a case based on discrimintion dure to associated drug abuse history that he was recovering from.

b.Zhou hasa prima facie case.

This is because first there is discrimintaion evident by the failure of the interviewer to continue with the interview upon disclosure of the information about drugs.

Second,there was no drug testing to prove the level of drug sustance and the associated implications on the job performance.The interviewer also failed to conduct himself in a resonable manner.The employer did not consider rasonable accomodation of the intrviewee which is a requirement by the hman rights code,upto to a level of undue hardships.

c.The employer contravened the policy.This is because the code provides that there should be reasobnable accomodation for employees with drug abuse history.The provisin of acomodation should be to the level of undue hardships to the employer.I also provides that the employer should prove rationality in denying an drug addict the job depening on the technical implicatons of it.

4.He should have continued with the interview.He should have inqusitively interrogated the recruit for much more details.This would may be have le to more infrmation that would have brought more light for the case to be decided in a fair manner.