In a workplace dispute that escalated into a human rights complaint, a Muslim student employed as a summer camp counsellor and front-desk attendant at Holland College in Prince Edward Island, alleged a co-worker’s hostile actions were motivated by religious bias.
The student, M.H., claimed management failed to address his concerns, leading him to file a formal complaint with the provincial human rights commission. When the commission dismissed his claims, M.H. sought judicial review, arguing its decision was compromised by bias, conspiracy and inadequate investigation.
The court, however, determined “the decisions of the Executive Director and the chair-delegate of the Human Rights Commission were both rational and logical as well as justifiable in light of the legal and factual constraints,” effectively upholding the commission’s dismissal of the complaint.
Background
M.H. told the commission he is a practising Muslim who made his religion known to his employer. He said the employer granted him time to attend midday prayers on Fridays and did not require him to participate in certain “theme week” events that had Christian connotations. At first, M.H. said he felt recognized as a valued employee—someone colleagues viewed as a “go-to guy.”
Tensions rose, however, when a co-worker identified as M. allegedly made remarks and took actions that M.H. felt were hostile and possibly linked to his faith. The dispute came to a head during a series of incidents M.H. said took place over a span of several days. He later filed an internal harassment complaint at the college, which was dismissed, and then pursued the human rights complaint.
Complaint dismissed as ‘without merit’
The human rights commission’s Executive Director (ED) took the role of investigating M.H.’s allegations, while the college responded to the commission by submitting its own evidence from the internal harassment investigation. According to the court’s summary, the ED “reviewed both M.H.’s position and the respondent Holland College’s position,” focusing on whether there was enough evidence to support a hearing.
The ED dismissed M.H.’s complaint as “without merit,” citing a lack of proof that religion factored into any workplace conflict. M.H. invoked his right to have a chair-delegate review the ED’s ruling, but the chair-delegate confirmed the decision. He then sought judicial review, arguing the commission’s approach was “biased,” “negligent,” involved “unreasonable delay,” and stemmed from a conspiracy between the college and the commission to “falsify testimony deliberately and tamper evidence.”
Judicial review
In the judicial review, M.H. repeated his conspiracy theory. He told the court, “I have reason to believe that Holland College and the Prince Edward Island Human Rights Commission conspired with one another to contaminate the facts of the case, falsify testimony deliberately and tamper evidence.” However, the court said M.H. did not file affidavits or other formal evidence to support these allegations.
The court allowed him to speak at length, noting it would have “adjourned the matter to allow fulsome evidence to be called on the issue by both parties” if there had been “even a remote air of reality” to his claims. It ultimately concluded there was no basis to find “falsifying/tampering” had occurred.
M.H. also contended that the commission took too long to reach a decision. From the time of his initial filing to the final ruling, however, only a few months elapsed. The court found “no long, unusual or inordinate delay,” adding that some of M.H.’s frustration might have stemmed from his own unfamiliarity with the process. It dismissed delay as a ground for challenging the commission’s conclusion.
On the claim of bias, M.H. singled out a comment the ED had supposedly made during their interview, suggesting that the co-worker might simply have been “a jerk” to everyone. The court found no “scintilla of evidence” that this indicated bias. Instead, it determined the ED was allowed to challenge M.H.’s view of events by putting alternative explanations before him. While exploring the respondent’s position, said the court, the ED was testing whether the issues went beyond interpersonal conflict and crossed into discriminatory conduct. The court noted that presenting an opposing viewpoint to a complainant does not mean the investigator “slipped into an adjudicative role.”
Negligence arguments
M.H. also argued negligence, contending that the ED relied too heavily on the college’s internal investigation and made a factual error about whether he submitted a letter of resignation. The court recognized that the ED’s decision did mistakenly refer to “a letter,” but it agreed with the chair-delegate’s finding that this detail did not affect the substance of the case. Citing case law, the court said a minor misstatement does not necessarily render a decision unreasonable.
According to the ruling, the human rights commission examined M.H.’s discrimination claim under a test that asks three main questions: whether the complainant has a protected characteristic, whether there was an adverse impact, and whether the protected characteristic was a factor in that adverse impact. The ED acknowledged M.H.’s faith meets the first criterion. However, the ED questioned whether M.H. experienced an actual adverse impact tied to religion, pointing out that his issues were not raised until just before he left the workplace. Further, in the ED’s view, there was “no evidence” that the co-worker’s actions stemmed from religious bias. While M.H. may have found M.’s manner offensive, the ED noted that “an assumption is not evidence.”
Retaliation
A separate element of M.H.’s case concerned “retaliation.” This focused on an alleged verbal altercation involving M.H. and another individual at the college, in which M.H. admitted to using strong language but claimed it was “in self-defence.” The ED concluded the incident did not arise from M.H.’s creed, but rather from an intense disagreement. The court said this analysis was consistent with the commission’s mandate to filter out claims lacking a strong factual basis.
Under administrative law principles, the court reviewed the commission’s actions on a standard of reasonableness. That means the reviewing court looks at whether the decision was “rational and logical” and whether the explanation given is “justifiable in light of the legal and factual constraints.” The court found the ED had thoroughly outlined M.H.’s complaints, tested them against the college’s evidence, and applied the legal test for discrimination without overstepping investigative limits. The chair-delegate similarly carried out a review, concluding there was no merit to overturn the ED’s findings.
M.H. bore the burden of proving the commission’s decision was unreasonable. The court concluded he did not meet that threshold, rejecting each of his allegations. Consequently, the court dismissed M.H.’s application for judicial review and allowed the commission’s dismissal of his complaint to stand. Because the college did not request costs, the court made no order in that regard, and the matter was closed.
For more information, see Hamza v. Holland College & PEIHRC, 2024 PESC 60 (CanLII).
