The Edmonton woman says she just wanted to get a feel for who was applying to babysit her three young children.
Now she has to respond in detail to a formal complaint that she violated one applicant’s human rights — by asking the man if he had children himself.
It’s just the latest in a string of grievances Edmonton’s James Cyrynowski has filed with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, alleging discrimination based on gender or other grounds, usually when applying for babysitting jobs.
Employers are barred under
the province’s rights law from rejecting someone based on their family status.
Another complaint resulted in a recommendation that a different mother pay him $1,500 in damages, leading to
a court battle that he lost.
A single father who failed to hire Cyrynowski now faces allegations of gender bias. That case, and the family-status case, have been
taken up by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, a conservative NGO. It says the human rights commission should not even investigate what is clearly legal over-reach, and an assault on parental liberty.
“It’s been very stressful … I couldn’t understand why I had a complaint against me,” said mother Danielle on Thursday. She asked that her last name not be published to protect her family’s privacy. “When it comes to inviting someone into your home to look after your children you should be able to ask any question necessary.”
The commission can dismiss complaints it believes are groundless. Marty Moore, the Justice Centre’s staff lawyer, questioned why it has accepted those against his two clients, given the agency’s chief commissioner and two Alberta courts have already said human-rights legislation should not interfere with parents’ child-care decisions. And that was in a case also initiated by Cyrynowski.
