Uncertainty over date of last incident, reason for termination raise timeliness, jurisdictional concerns
The Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has dismissed a worker’s discrimination claim against his former employer due to the allegations being untimely and a lack of factual connection to protected human rights grounds.
The worker was employed with Co-Ex-Tec, an automotive parts manufacturer in Concord, Ont. According to the worker, he reported workplace safety hazards to the company multiple times between December 2020 and April 2021. However, Co-Ex-Tec didn’t address his concerns.
On May 6, 2021, the worker went off work for medical reasons. However, he continued to report his safety concerns to the company during his absence.
On Jan. 28, 2022, Co-Ex-Tec advised the worker that if he didn’t return to work or provide adequate documentation to support his absence by Feb. 14, it would consider him to have abandoned his employment. The worker didn’t, so the company sent him a termination letter on Feb. 14 by registered mail. According to the worker, he didn’t receive the termination letter until March.
The worker contacted Co-Ex-Tec on April 22 with what he called a “final attempt” to address the workplace safety hazards, but again the company took no action.
Allegations of discrimination, reprisal
On Feb. 21, 2023, the worker filed an application alleging employment discrimination because of colour, ethnic origin, and race. He alleged that Co-Ex-Tec discriminated against him by failing to address workplace safety hazards he reported and then terminating his employment for raising safety concerns. He also claimed that the company terminated him “as a result of his race, colour, or ethnic origin” – he identified his race as “Chinese,” his colour as “yellow,” and his place of origin as China.
The tribunal noted that the Ontario Human Rights Code requires an application to filed within one year of an incident or the last incident of a series of incidents of discrimination. The worker replied that he was discriminated against based on race, colour, and ethnic origin as well as reprisal for raising workplace safety concerns, and the last incident of discrimination was his attempt to address the safety hazards on April 22, 2022.
The worker also stated that he was assigned tasks below his qualifications while his white colleagues were given more challenging assignments, he was disciplined for minor or made-up errors, and the company labelling him “incompetent and disloyal” when it fired him.
Delay beyond limitation period
The tribunal found that most of the allegations occurred beyond the one-year limitation period prescribed under the code. While the application was filed on Feb. 21, 2023, the incidents described by the worker - including safety complaints made between December 2020 and April 2021 and claims of differential treatment compared to white colleagues during his employment before he went off work in May 2021 - fell outside the required timeframe.
The worker suggested that his delay in filing was due to his attempts to resolve the issues internally to avoid causing “substantial prejudice to the parties involved,” along with a severe dental condition that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and impacted his ability to address the issues in his application.
The tribunal found that the worker failed to meet the high threshold required to demonstrate a good-faith reason for the delay. Awaiting the outcome of internal processes isn’t a valid reason under the code and the worker didn’t provide sufficient medical evidence of his dental condition to justify the delay, said the tribunal, adding that the pandemic-related suspension of limitation periods under Ontario Regulation 73/20 only applied to the period of March 16 to Sept. 13, 2020 – before any of the alleged incidents of discrimination in this case.
The tribunal also found no factual basis linking Co-Ex-Tec’s decision to terminate the worker’s employment to any protected ground under the code. The worker’s suggestion that his actions may have been viewed “as an affront to [the company’s] authority” and that he was terminated “as a result of his race, colour, or ethnic origin” was only speculation, the tribunal said.
With regards to the worker’s claim of reprisal, the tribunal noted that raising workplace safety issues doesn’t engage the code and there was no evidence that the worker engaged a code-based right or that the company acted with retaliatory intent.
No differential treatment
In addition, the tribunal found that other actions by Co-Ex-Tec, including delivery of the termination letter by registered mail and restricting the worker’s access to its premises when he came to pick up his tools, were consistent with standard legal and employment practices and weren’t differential treatment.
As for the worker’s attempt to re-engage the company on safety concerns in April 2022, this wasn’t a new incident of discrimination, as the worker was no longer employed and didn’t fall within the employment area covered by the code, said the tribunal.
The tribunal dismissed the worker’s application for having no timely or valid allegations under the code. See Han v. Co-Ex-Tec, 2025 HRTO 1412.
