A claim of discrimination filed by a government employee whose work-from-home arrangement had been cancelled by her manager has been dismissed by the Federal Court of Appeal. The employee, Anjie Tarek-Kaminker, is a federal Crown prosecutor in Toronto and a married mother of five.
“Not every conflict between one’s professional obligations and one’s family responsibilities constitutes prima facie discrimination,” Justice Anne Mactavish wrote in the decision, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.
“Parents usually have various options available to meet their parental obligations,” Mactavish added.
Tarek-Kaminker had been permitted to work from home two days a week until her manager cancelled the arrangement in 2016, saying it was “no longer feasible.”
The appeal court said working from home two days per week “limited her ability to conduct lengthy trials before [the] Ontario Superior Court, something the employer says would be a normal expectation for prosecutors.”
However, Tarek-Kaminker said her employer’s decision was discriminatory because it prevented her from attending “many medical appointments and school meetings to the detriment of her children’s needs.” She also said that as an observant Jew she often had to miss religious observances.
The Federal Court of Appeal’s decision on Tarek-Kaminker’s case
follows the initial dismissal of her complaint by the federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board in 2021.
At the time, an arbitrator wrote that Tarek-Kaminker was “less than frank,” prone to “hyperbole,” and submitted no evidence such as regarding “the family’s nanny situation” and assistance from her husband and extended family in caring for the children.
Federal Workers
Tarek-Kaminker’s original complaint came before over 287,000 federal employees were directed to work from home starting in March 2020 due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.The federal Treasury Board, which employs public servants across a wide range of government departments and agencies, said in a March 2022 “
Guidebook for departments on easing of restrictions“ that federal employers must ”protect the physical and psychological health and safety of employees” in determining their work situation.
Then in December 2022, the Treasury Board
mandated its employees to work in their offices for two to three days a week by March 31, 2023.
In April, some 155,000 federal workers belonging to the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) went on strike, with their union
demanding that employees be given the option to work from home full-time instead of going by the Treasury Board’s proposed “hybrid model.”
PSAC and the Treasury Board
reached a tentative agreement on the matter on May 1.
Andrew Chen and Matthew Horwood contributed to this report.
