BC Human Rights Tribunal

I          INTRODUCTION

[1]               Chao Lin filed a complaint of discrimination in employment. In an earlier decision, I found that the complaint was filed outside the one-year time limit, and declined to exercise my discretion to accept it under s. 22(3) of the Human Rights Code. I dismissed the complaint under s. 27(1)(g) of the Code : Lin v. Saputo Foods Limited and Saputo Dairy Products Canada GP , 2025 BCHRT 49 [Dismissal Decision]. Mr. Lin now applies to have the Tribunal reconsider the Dismissal Decision.

[2]               For the reasons that follow, the application is granted in part. However, the outcome of the Dismissal Decision remains the same. The complaint is dismissed.

II       DECISION

[3]               The power to reconsider a decision, once made, is necessarily very narrow. Among other things, this ensures that the resources of the Tribunal and the parties are not endlessly taken up in re-arguing the same issues, which would be neither efficient nor fair: Grant v. City of Vancouver and others (No. 4), 2007 BCHRT 206 at para. 10. As the Supreme Court of Canada has explained:

Litigants hope to have their legal issues resolved as equitably and expeditiously as possible by an authoritative adjudicator. Subject only to rights of review or appeal, they expect, in the interests of fairness, to be able to rely on the outcome as final and binding…

British Columbia (Workers’ Compensation Board) v. Figliola,  2011 SCC 52 [Figliola] at para. 1.

[4]               The Tribunal’s jurisdiction to reconsider its own decisions is limited to cases where reconsideration is in the interests of fairness and justice: Zutter v. British Columbia (Council of Human Rights) (1995), 1995 CanLII 1234 (BCCA); Fraser Health Authority v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal, 2014 BCCA 499 at para. 160, upheld on this point in 2016 SCC 25; Chandler v. Alberta Association of Architects, 1989 CanLII 41 (SCC).

[5]               Reconsideration is not an opportunity for parties to “enter new facts that with reasonable diligence were available in the first instance, to make arguments that could have been made in the first instance but were not, or to reargue matters that were argued in the first instance in an attempt to achieve a different result”: Ramadan v. Kwantlen Polytechnic University and another (No. 2), 2018 BCHRT 56 at para. 13. Here, the burden is on Mr. Lin to show that reconsideration is in the interests of fairness and justice: Grant at para. 10; Tribunal’s Rules of Practice and Procedure, Rule 36(1).

[6]               Mr. Lin argues that fairness requires the Tribunal reconsider the Dismissal Decision because:

a.    the Tribunal did not give notice that he was required to file all of his evidence in English and, as a result, I did not consider his evidence which was in Chinese.

b.    I misunderstood certain circumstances surrounding the termination of Mr. Lin’s franchise agreement, specifically that Saputo told Mr. Lin that the agreement was being terminated because of accident complaints related to his driving (rather than performance concerns), and that Mr. Lin had subsequently requested – and never been provided – with records of “accident complaints” (rather than performance concerns).

c.     I failed to resolve or address issues about the timing of Saputo’s decision to terminate the franchise agreement, and the timely allegations about the end of his franchise agreement on January 30, 2019.

In an affidavit submitted with his reply, Mr. Lin also identifies other areas where he says that I ignored or misunderstood his allegations.

[7]               I agree with Saputo that most of Mr. Lin’s submissions are about his disagreement with the Dismissal Decision. They relate to issues that he did, or could have, addressed in the original submissions process. They do not reflect any procedural unfairness or other basis to reopen a final decision. To challenge these parts of the Dismissal Decision on the basis that they render the decision patently unreasonable, Mr. Lin may file a petition for judicial review in the BC Supreme Court.

[8]               The one exception is with respect to Mr. Lin’s evidence that was submitted in Chinese. In the Dismissal Decision, I referenced this evidence and the fact I had been unable to read it: “Mr. Lin also refers to 349 screenshots of conversations with Mr. E, which appear to be almost entirely in Mandarin and which I cannot read”: para. 21. Mr. Lin says that he was not aware that he was required to submit all his evidence in English, and the Tribunal never notified him to re-send the evidence in English. He has now submitted documents which I understand to be translated versions of the text messages between himself and a potential purchaser for his business (Mr. E), and between himself and his wife. I have reviewed those messages.

[9]               For the purpose of this application, I accept that fairness may require I reconsider the Dismissal Decision, in light of the now-translated evidence that Mr. Lin has provided. However, this evidence does not change my decision. 

[10]           The text messages with Mr. E cover a period between December 2017 and September 2018. They do provide some evidentiary support for Mr. Lin’s allegations that Saputo was creating roadblocks for him to sell his business. For example, in one message, Mr. E says, “It’s really strange, they seem to not want me to buy the business”. There are many messages about repairs to the delivery truck. By the summer of 2018, Mr. E seemed poised to buy the business. Mr. E tells Mr. Lin that Saputo told him that he could not hire Mr. Lin to help him because of Mr. Lin’s “bad records”, and Mr. Lin speculated that the employer “still hasn’t given up on the idea of scaring you away”.

[11]           The text messages with Mr. Lin’s wife span a period from 2016 until November 2018. They include some information about Mr. Lin’s complaints about Saputo, and efforts to sell his business.

[12]           Respectfully, these text messages do not change the outcome of the Dismissal Decision. They provide some more context to the events giving rise to the complaint, and some more support for Mr. Lin’s arguments about how he was treated by Saputo. They are consistent with how I summarized Mr. Lin’s allegations: see e.g. para. 21. Here I note that, contrary to Mr. Lin’s arguments, I did not make any findings of fact in the Dismissal Decision, because that is not part of the Tribunal’s gatekeeping exercise.

[13]           The Dismissal Decision was based on my assessment of the timeliness of Mr. Lin’s complaint, and my decision about whether it was in the public interest to accept the complaint for filing after the time limit. It turned on whether Mr. Lin had set out facts that could prove either:

a.    Saputo’s decision to end his franchise agreement on January 30, 2019, was connected to his disabilities (para. 36); or

b.    Saputo’s conduct on April 5, 2019, which Mr. Lin alleges was fabricating evidence, adversely impacted him in employment based on his disabilities (para. 38).

The text messages do not speak to either of these issues. Nor do they provide a basis on which I would conclude that it is in the public interest to allow the complaint to proceed 15 months after the time limit for filing.

[14]           For those reasons, reconsidering the Dismissal Decision yields the same result: the complaint is dismissed under s. 27(1)(g) of the Code.

III     Conclusion

[15]           I grant the application to reconsider the Dismissal Decision in light of the translated text messages between Mr. Lin and Mr. E, and Mr. Lin and his wife. However, those messages do not change the decision.

[16]           I deny the remainder of the reconsideration application.

[17]           The Dismissal Decision stands, and this file is now closed.

Devyn Cousineau

Vice Chair