Dhillon v. BC Ministry of Children and Family Development, 2025 BCHRT 120
Date Issued: May 13, 2025
File(s): CS-009006
Indexed as: Dhillon v. BC Ministry of Children and Family Development, 2025 BCHRT 120
IN THE MATTER OF THE HUMAN RIGHTS CODE,
RSBC 1996, c. 210 (as amended)
AND IN THE MATTER of a complaint before
the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal
BETWEEN:
Meena Dhillon
COMPLAINANT
AND:
His Majesty the King in right of the Province of British Columbia as represented by
the Ministry of Children and Family Development
RESPONDENT
REASONS FOR DECISION
TIMELINESS OF COMPLAINT
SECTION 22
Tribunal Member: Steven Adamson
On her own behalf: Meena Dhillon
Counsel for the Respondent: Rochelle Pauls & Jaclyn Salter
I. INTRODUCTION
[1] On February 28, 2023, Meena Dhillon filed a complaint of discrimination in employment based on race, sex and political belief contrary to s. 13 of the Human Rights Code [ Code ], against His Majesty the King in right of the Province of British Columbia as represented by the Ministry of Children and Family Development [the Ministry ].
[2] The issue before me with respect to timeliness is whether to accept the Complaint against the Ministry. I make no findings of fact regarding the merits of this complaint.
[3] For the reasons that follow, I find that it is not in the public interest to allow the Complaint to proceed late filed: s. 22(3).
II. BACKGROUND
[4] Ms. Dhillon is a visibly South Asian woman, who is Punjabi born. She describes herself as an intersectional feminist with the strength to speak up when she sees situations of unfairness and inequity.
[5] From 2001 until December 8, 2021, Ms. Dhillon worked as a social worker at the Ministry and was an acting team leader from late 2014 until she left at the end of 2021. Ms. Dhillon became a practicing lawyer in 2009 and worked part-time in this field aside from her work at the Ministry.
[6] Ms. Dhillon states that her Ministry colleagues saw her as someone they could turn to and in turn, she supported a lot of them with filing grievances. She also reports being the equity chair for her union in the region and describes herself as being vocal about union rights and the union contract. Ms. Dhillon states that she was considered a troublemaker at work because she asked questions and requested explanations from her superiors. She says that she needed to make sure anything she was directed to do was ethical and did not breach anyone’s human rights. If Ms. Dhillon was asked to do something she believed was unfair she states that she would refuse to do it. She describes Ministry management as being intimidated and threatened by her intelligence and courage to be a voice to many.
[7] From 2015 until her departure in 2021, Ms. Dhillon alleges the Ministry kept her in acting team leader roles of a temporary nature for reasons related to her race, sex and political belief. She alleges being interviewed five times for a permanent team leader position while occupying the role on a temporary basis without ever receiving the top mark in the interview process. Ms. Dhillon alleges the interviews at the Ministry were conducted primarily by white people with less education and less work experience. Despite this, she notes being interviewed on two occasions by a brown woman who hired her into temporary team leader position each time.
[8] In November 2019, Ms. Dhillon alleges the Ministry denied her leave to attend a union equity conference and forced her to take vacation while others attending were covered. She alleges the Ministry’s negative decision was related to her race, sex and political belief.
[9] In January 2020, Ms. Dhillon alleges a white woman was hired into a permanent team leader position without an interview, while she continued to act on a temporary basis. She alleges being asked to do the white woman’s training.
[10] On December 8, 2021, Ms. Dhillon states she left the public service to work as a lawyer for her parents. She alleges the Ministry denied her request for leave without pay to do this after concluding that her move created a potential conflict of interest that made it impossible for her to ever work for the BC public service again. Ms. Dhillon alleges the Ministry misinformed her that a review supporting its decision was undertaken by the ethics commissioner. She believes her manager’s decision not to grant her leave without pay was related to her race, sex and political belief.
[11] In December 2021, Ms. Dhillon alleges her temporary team leader position was posted permanently immediately after she left the job. She alleges this occurred, despite the Ministry informing her on her last day of work that making the position permanent was not permitted.
III. ANALYSIS AND DECISION
[12] The time limit set out in s. 22 of the Code is a substantive provision which is intended to ensure that complainants pursue their human rights remedies diligently: Chartier v. School District No. 62 , 2003 BCHRT 39.
A. Time Limit
[13] The Complaint was filed on February 28, 2023. To comply with the one-year time limit under s. 22(1) of the Code , the alleged act of discrimination had to occur on or after February 28, 2022.
[14] The latest allegation of discrimination in this case occurred on December 8, 2021, when the Ministry denied Ms. Dhillon’s leave without pay request. As such, the Complaint is late-filed and I proceed to an analysis of whether the Tribunal should exercise its discretion to accept the complaint outside the one-year time limit because it is in the public interest to do so, and no substantial prejudice will result to any person because of the delay: Code s. 22(3). I begin with the public interest determination.
B. Public Interest
[15] Whether it is in the public interest to accept the late-filed complaint is a multi-faceted analysis. The enquiry is fact and context specific and assessed in accordance with the purposes of the Code : Hoang v. Warnaco and Johns , 2007 BCHRT 24 at para. 26. The Tribunal considers a non-exhaustive list of factors, including the length of the delay, the reasons for the delay, and the public interest in the complaint itself: British Columbia (Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General) v. Mzite , 2014 BCCA 220 [ Mzite ] at para. 53. These are important factors, but they are not necessarily determinative: Goddard v. Dixon , 2012 BCSC 161 at para. 152; Mzite at para. 55.
[16] I have first considered the length of delay in filing. The latest allegation in this case occurred on December 8, 2021. As such, the complaint allegations are over two months late. Such a delay is significant, but may not be inordinate or beyond consideration, if other factors support acceptance: Young v. Home Depot and others , 2018 BCHRT 68 at para. 42.
[17] Ms. Dhillon’s reasons for the delay focus on her need to gather more evidence. She submits that she wanted to first obtain evidence of wrongdoing by the Ministry in relation to her leave without pay request before making a complaint with the Tribunal. Ms. Dhillon reports making freedom of information requests to see what the Ministry’s records showed about an ethics review being conducted and whether the Ministry sought any involvement from human resources in relation to her leave of absence request. In February 2023, she claims that her freedom of information request came back with no information about an ethics review or discussions with human resources about her leave without pay request at the end of 2021. Ms. Dhillon submits that even though she had a hard time accepting the false information about not being entitled to leave, she struggled to accept that she was right and the privileged white women in positions of power were wrong. For this reason, she needed proof before filing.
[18] Ms. Dhillon seeks to have the months it took to gather evidence through freedom of information requests and privacy complaints attract the public interest as part of her struggle to navigate in a world of white privilege. For reasons related to a lifetime of systemic discrimination, she claims to have needed proof that Ministry managers lied to her about not being able to return to work before filing the Complaint. While acknowledging Ms. Dhillon’s discussion of women of colour routinely doubting themselves when it comes to calling out wrongs in the face of white privilege, it is difficult to reconcile this behaviour generally attributed to women of colour with her description of herself elsewhere in the Complaint. The Complaint evidence indicates that Ms. Dhillon was not a “yes boss” person and that she refused to do tasks assigned to her that she did not think were ethical or in breach of someone’s human rights. It also indicates that she was intimidating and threatening to her superiors because of her intelligence and courage to be the voice of many. In light of Ms. Dhillon’s description of how she operated in the workplace, it is difficult to conclude without more evidence from her that her self-doubt held her back from filing until more evidence was available to attract the public interest. Ms. Dhillon’s description of her previous conduct makes it difficult to place her in the category of women unwilling to act without further proof of misconduct.
[19] I have also considered whether Ms. Dhillon’s need to find out whether any evidence existed concerning an ethics review or other input from human resources attracts the public interest to accept a late-filed complaint because material facts were unknown prior to receiving proper disclosure of Ministry evidence. In cases where the complainant does not know the material facts upon which their complaint may be based, and could not with reasonable diligence have discovered those facts, then it would be unfair not to permit them to file their complaint upon becoming aware of those facts: Mehar and others v. International Forest Products , 2005 BCHRT 161, Sidhu and Reyes and Bhatti v. Western Forest Products Inc ., 2006 BCHRT 251, Yen v. Vancouver General Hospital and others , 2007 BCHRT 328, AM v. BCHRT , 2017 BCSC 89.
[20] In this case, however, I do not find that Ms. Dhillon lacked material facts upon which her complaint was based to attract the public interest. At the time she left in December 2021, the Complaint information indicates that Ms. Dhillon already believed that this decision was wrong and made for reasons related to her race, sex and political beliefs. As of that time she also alleges experiencing years of being kept back from securing a permanent team leader position for reasons related to her personal characteristics. Further, Ms. Dhillon recognized that she was being treated differently when she was not granted leave to attend a union equity conference because of her race, sex and political beliefs. While learning about the lack of evidence related to an ethics review or any input from human resources made her case stronger, in my view this evidence does not amount to discovering the kind of material evidence necessary to attract the public interest in allowing the late filed complaint to proceed.
[21] In determining whether acceptance of a late-filed complaint is in the public interest, the Tribunal also considers whether there is anything particularly unique, novel, or unusual about the complaint that has not been addressed in other complaints: Hau v. SFU Student Services and others , 2014 BCHRT 10 at para. 22; Bains v. Advanced Air Supply and others , 2012 BCHRT 74 at para. 22; Mathieu v. Victoria Shipyards and others , 2010 BCHRT 244 at para. 60. Where a complaint raises a novel issue on behalf of a vulnerable group, which advances the purposes of the Code , this factor may weigh in favour of finding a public interest in accepting the complaint: Mzite at paras. 65-66. The Tribunal has considered gaps in its jurisprudence, on the one hand, and the existence of good precedents, on the other hand, in determining whether to permit a complaint to proceed: Mzite at para. 67.
[22] Ms. Dhillon is concerned about how many other employees have been lied to and suffered an abuse of power by the Ministry after being told that they can no longer work for the provincial government. She also argues that her complaint raises a novel issue on behalf of vulnerable women of colour working for organizations where the leadership is primarily comprised of white people. Without doubting the seriousness of Ms. Dhillon’s allegations, I do not find this case to be unique for the purposes of attracting the public interest in allowing the Complaint to proceed late. The Complaint involves allegations of discrimination in employment related to race, sex and political belief. Such cases are unfortunately quite commonly heard by the Tribunal and the law in this area is fairly settled. Some recent examples include Fyffe v. University of British Columbia , 2024 BCHRT 88; Pigeau v. School District No. 82 and another , 2024 BCHRT 340; Habib v. The Immigrant Services Society of British Columbia and others , 2024 BCHRT 224.
[23] Having not found that it is in the public interest to accept the late-filed complaint, I need not address the issue of whether substantial prejudice would result.
IV. CONCLUSION
[24] For these reasons, the complaint is not accepted for filing.
Steven Adamson
Tribunal Member