Worker believed request for driver’s license during bus driver job interview was discriminatory
A worker’s allegations of discrimination stemming from a request for his driver’s license during an interview for a bus driver position have been dismissed by the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.
The worker interviewed for a bus driver position with March of Dimes Canada. He was optimistic about his chances for getting the job, particularly after the March of Dimes representative who interviewed him asked him when he could start work and provided some information about training.
The representative gave the worker a form to take home and complete that required him to provide references. March of Dimes also required him to provide a copy of his driver’s license and driver’s license abstract.
The worker provided the required documents as well as character references. However, he didn’t want to provide any work references because he had reported a previous employer to the Ontario Ministry of Labour and filed legal actions and a human rights complaint against another former employer.
The application process stopped at this point and the worker wasn’t hired.
Worker suspected age, disability discrimination
The worker believed that the reason the hiring process didn’t continue was because March of Dimes didn’t hire him because his driver’s license showed his relatively advanced age and the fact that he wore prescription eyeglasses. He filed a human rights application alleging that the Ontario Human Rights Code prohibits an employer from requiring a job applicant to provide a copy of their driver’s license, even for a bus driving position involving vulnerable passengers.
March of Dimes maintained that it didn’t hire the worker because he didn’t provide the employment references that it required, and this was the only reason it didn’t continue the hiring process. It requested that the worker’s application be dismissed as having no reasonable prospect of success.
The tribunal noted that the code doesn’t prohibit a prospective employer from requesting information such as a driver’s license from a prospective employee unless the request is based on or linked to a ground protected under the code.
Both parties submitted written arguments and reiterated that the worker’s failure to provide work references was the sole reason for discontinuing the hiring process. The worker said that he believed that March of Dimes shouldn’t have asked for a copy of his driver’s license and the fact that it did was a breach of the code.
Nexus between adverse treatment and protected characteristics?
As part of a summary hearing, the tribunal accepted all facts alleged by the worker as true in order to determine if he had a reasonable prospect of proving, on a balance of probabilities, that his human rights were breached and there was a nexus between him not being hired and any protected grounds.
The tribunal found that the worker didn’t point to any evidence that could establish a link between the request for his driver’s license and the decision not to hire him and his age or disability. The worker’s “bald assertion” that he was treated differently because of his protected grounds wasn’t enough to provide any factual basis for his allegations, the tribunal said.
In addition, the worker admitted that he had no way of knowing if the representative in the interview had seen his driver’s license.
The tribunal determined that there was no reasonable prospect that the worker would succeed in establishing a breach of the code on the grounds of disability or age.
“Unfair treatment is not discriminatory in the legal sense unless there is proof that one or more of these personal characteristics was a factor in the treatment the applicant experienced,” said the tribunal in dismissing the worker’s application.
