Knipstrom v The City of Vernon, 2026 BCHRT 226
Date Issued: October 30, 2026
File(s): CS-008722
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:
Holly Knipstrom
COMPLAINANT
AND:
The City of Vernon
RESPONDENT
REASONS FOR DECISION
APPLICATION TO DISMISS A COMPLAINT
Section 27(1)(c)
Tribunal Member: Carol Whittome
Counsel for the Complainant: Ian Jung
Counsel for the Respondent: Mark Bout
I INTRODUCTION
[1] Holly Knipstrom and Ms. Steck are both bylaw officers for the City of Vernon. Ms. Steck is younger than Ms. Knipstrom. In 2021, they both applied for a temporary, full-time bylaw officer position. The City offered Ms. Knipstrom the position but she turned it down for personal reasons. Approximately two months later, Ms. Knipstrom and Ms. Steck competed for a similar but permanent, full-time position. This time, the City offered it to Ms. Steck.
[2] Ms. Knipstrom alleges the City discriminated against her based on age, contrary to s. 13 of the Human Rights Code, when it hired Ms. Steck for the permanent position. She says she was more qualified, and there was no good reason why the City would rank the candidates differently only two months later. She suggests age was a factor in the second competition because the role was permanent rather than temporary.
[3] Ms. Knipstrom says several facts, considered together, show that ageism was involved in the hiring process and decision: the City criticized her interview answers in a way that reflected stereotypes about older workers; the hiring process was unfair because a senior bylaw officer gave some candidates advance information about an interview exam topic; and the City did not hire any bylaw officers over age 60 into permanent positions in 2021.
[4] The City applies to dismiss the complaint under s. 27(1)(c), arguing it has no reasonable prospect of success. It says the evidence does not support an inference that age played a role in hiring Ms. Steck, who performed better in the interview. The City says it is not the Tribunal’s role to assess whether it made the right hiring decision. It also says the senior bylaw officer was not involved in the hiring process, and any unfair treatment was caused by their poor working relationship, not Ms. Knipstrom’s age. Lastly, it says its hiring decisions do not show bias against older workers, noting Ms. Knipstrom was offered a similar position at about the same age, and she has since obtained other positions.
[5] To decide this application, I must consider all of the evidence in context to decide whether there is no reasonable prospect it could support an inference that ageism tainted the City’s hiring decision. This question is different from deciding whether the hiring process and/or decision were fair.
[6] For the following reasons, I grant the City’s application and dismiss the complaint under s. 27(1)(c). Although Ms. Knipstrom may have valid concerns about the fairness of the hiring process, there is no reasonable prospect the Tribunal could infer, based on the whole of the evidence, that age bias affected how the City assessed her interview or made its hiring decision.
[7] To make this decision, I have considered all the information filed by the parties. In these reasons, I only refer to what is necessary to explain my decision. I make no findings of fact.
II BACKGROUND
[8] The City hired Ms. Knipstrom to work as a part-time bylaw officer in 2018, when she was 56 years old. Ms. Knipstrom and other bylaw officers are unionized employees. Their employment terms and conditions, including hiring processes, are set out in a collective agreement between the City and the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Local 626.
[9] Ms. Knipstrom successfully competed for various bylaw positions, and her performance was praised by her managers from the time she started working at the City until mid-2021. At that time, a conflict began to develop between her and a senior bylaw officer.
[10] Ms. Knipstrom says she had good rapport with her colleagues except for the senior bylaw officer, who had a “pattern of rude and aggressive behaviour.” According to Ms. Knipstrom, the senior bylaw officer held a “a supervisory position” with discretion to make decisions on other bylaw officer files, including the ability to “write up” bylaw officers for allegations of poor performance or misconduct.
[11] In July 2021, the senior bylaw officer gave Ms. Knipstrom a non-disciplinary report about three work performance-related issues, including arguing with him. She asked the assistant manager to set up a meeting with the senior bylaw officer to discuss it, but the assistant manager said the senior bylaw officer did not want to discuss it, and they would not force him.
[12] However, the senior bylaw officer changed his mind a few weeks later and met with Ms. Knipstrom and the assistant manager. Ms. Knipstrom says that “each of the three issues raised were determined to be false,” and the senior bylaw officer said he must have misinterpreted things. She later asked for the report to be removed from her personnel file, but the manager refused. She protested that this was unfair, but the manager said the report would not be removed from her file for at least a year.
[13] In late 2021, Ms. Knipstrom successfully competed for one of two temporary full-time positions but declined it for personal reasons. The assistant manager, manager, and an HR person were on the hiring panel, and they interviewed three candidates: Ms. Knipstrom, Ms. Steck, and Mr. Sochan.
[14] During the 2021 interview, Ms. Knipstrom was asked, “have you ever had an issue with a fellow employee, and what did you do?” Ms. Knipstrom says she talked about the senior bylaw officer’s non-disciplinary report and mentioned that it remained on her personnel record. She says she wanted the human resources person on the hiring panel to be aware of this.
[15] A few weeks after the interview, Ms. Knipstrom says the assistant manager told her that the manager was upset she had talked about false accusations during her interview and had wanted to remove her from the job competition. Ms. Knipstrom responded that she had told the truth.
[16] Some time after, the manager met with her and offered her the temporary full-time position. She says he told her that she had interviewed well and had “far more skills and experience” compared to the other candidates. However, Ms. Knipstrom decided she had to turn the position down for personal reasons. Therefore, Mr. Sochan and Ms. Steck were offered the positions.
[17] In early 2022, Ms. Knipstrom applied for a permanent full-time position. The City interviewed four applicants: Ms. Knipstrom who was then 60 years old, Ms. Steck who was around 42, Mr. Sochan who was in his mid-thirties, and Ms. J. There is no evidence about Ms. J’s age. The assistant manager, manager, and an HR person were again on the hiring panel. The interview process consisted of a written assessment and an oral interview, and candidates were asked the same questions.
[18] The written assessment consisted of five questions, and the City assigned a certain number of points to each question. Ms. Knipstrom and Ms. Steck scored the highest of all four candidates, each getting seven out of a possible 13 points. One question was about soil deposition and was worth one point. Ms. Steck got one point for that question and Ms. Knipstrom got none.
[19] The oral interview consisted of 24 questions. Each of the three interviewers kept notes of the candidate’s answers. One question asked about the candidate’s organizational strategies to ensure efficient work, and Ms. Knipstrom answered that she used a paper calendar and notebook. The manager’s interview notes include the comment “No tech. Paper = lots of time”.
[20] Where Ms. Knipstrom and Ms. Steck’s answers “meaningfully diverged” from each other on the oral interview, the hiring panel compared their answers. The panel identified five questions where they thought the answers meaningfully diverged. The question about organizational strategies was not among them. The panel determined that Ms. Steck’s answers were more fulsome, so the City offered her the job and she accepted.
[21] After the manager and the assistant manager told her she did not get the position, Ms. Knipstrom heard that the senior bylaw officer helped Ms. Steck and Mr. Sochan prepare for the interview. Ms. Knipstrom asked Ms. Steck and Mr. Sochan about this, and they both told her that the senior bylaw officer told them to pay attention to soil deposition prior to the interview. Neither candidate was aware the senior bylaw officer was not helping Ms. Knipstrom.
[22] Ms. Knipstrom says she told the assistant manager and the manager that the senior bylaw officer had helped Ms. Steck and Mr. Sochan, and they responded that she could have asked the senior bylaw officer for help. Ms. Knipstrom knew the senior bylaw officer was not interested in her success, so she felt the manager and the assistant manager brushed her complaint aside.
[23] Ms. Knipstrom also says a witness saw the senior bylaw officer get a text message from the manager “instructing him to prepare Ms. Steck and Mr. Sochan for what would be on the written test.”
III DECISION
A. Section 27(1)(c) – No reasonable prospect of success
[24] The City applies to dismiss Ms. Knipstrom’s complaint on the basis that it has no reasonable prospect of success: Code, s. 27(1)(c). The onus is on the City to establish the basis for dismissal.
[25] Section 27(1)(c) is part of the Tribunal’s gate-keeping function. It allows the Tribunal to remove complaints which do not warrant the time and expense of a hearing.
[26] The Tribunal does not make findings of fact under s. 27(1)(c). Instead, the Tribunal looks at the evidence to decide whether “there is no reasonable prospect that findings of fact that would support the complaint could be made on a balance of probabilities after a full hearing of the evidence”: Berezoutskaia v. British Columbia (Human Rights Tribunal), 2006 BCCA 95 at para. 22, leave to appeal ref’d [2006] SCCA No. 171. The Tribunal must base its decision on the materials filed by the parties, and not on speculation about what evidence may be filed at the hearing: University of British Columbia v. Chan,2013 BCSC 942 [Chan] at para. 77.
[27] A dismissal application is not the same as a hearing: Lord v. Fraser Health Authority,2021 BCSC 2176 at para. 20; SEPQA v. Canadian Human Rights Commission,[1989] 2 SCR 879 at 899. The threshold to advance a complaint to a hearing is low. In a dismissal application, a complainant does not have to prove their complaint or show the Tribunal all the evidence they may introduce at a hearing. They only have to show that the evidence takes their complaint out of the realm of conjecture: Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal v. Hill, 2011 BCCA 49 at para. 27.
[28] Many human rights complaints raise issues of credibility. This is not, by itself, a sufficient reason to deny an application to dismiss: Evans v. University of British Columbia, 2008 BCSC 1026 at para. 34. However, if there are foundational or key issues of credibility, the complaint must go to a hearing: Francescutti v. Vancouver (City), 2017 BCCA 242 at para 67.
[29] To prove her complaint at a hearing, Ms. Knipstrom will have to prove that she has a characteristic protected by the Code, she was adversely impacted in employment, and her protected characteristic was a factor in the adverse impact: Moore v. British Columbia (Education), 2012 SCC 61 at para. 33. In this case, that means Ms. Knipstrom would have to prove that her age was a factor in the City’s decision to award the permanent position to a younger candidate. If she did that, the burden would shift to the City to justify the impact as a bona fide reasonable justification. If the impact is justified, there is no discrimination.
[30] There is no dispute that Ms. Knipstrom is an older employee and that she did not get the permanent position. The City’s arguments on this application centre on its position that there is no reasonable prospect Ms. Knipstrom will prove a connection between her age and the fact that the City decided to offer the job to Ms. Steck. Therefore, I do not need to address the first two elements of the case she must prove. My analysis below addresses the parties’ arguments on whether there is no reasonable prospect Ms. Knipstrom can prove a connection exists between her age and not getting the position.
[31] The City says the complaint has no reasonable prospect of success because Ms. Knipstrom cannot prove an inference that her age was a factor in its decision to hire an applicant who happened to be younger. Further, the City says it can prove non-discriminatory explanations for their hiring decision.
[32] For reasons that follow, I find Ms. Knipstrom has no reasonable prospect of proving that her age played any role in the City’s decision to hire someone else for the permanent full-time position in 2022. There is no evidence connecting her age to what she believes was unfair treatment. I also find that even if discrimination could be inferred, the City is likely able to show its hiring decision was based on non-discriminatory reasons.
1. Evidence of ageism
[33] Ms. Knipstrom says that, considered together, there is ample evidence that supports an inference that the City’s hiring process and/or decision was tainted by ageism.
[34] Discrimination often occurs in subtle, indirect forms. The Tribunal recognizes it is possible to find a contravention of the Code based on inferences that are reasonable to draw from the evidence, including circumstantial evidence, where the evidence makes such an inference more probable than other possible inferences or hypotheses: Vestad v. Seashell Ventures Inc., 2001 BCHRT 38 at para. 44.
[35] For the Tribunal to draw an inference of discrimination, a complainant must provide a factual basis for the inference. Without a factual basis, a person’s personal belief of discriminatory treatment, no matter how sincerely felt, “can only be said to be based on speculation and conjecture, rooted in feelings, suspicions and beliefs:” Ibrahim v. Intercon Security, 2007 BCHRT 201 at para. 80.
[36] Ms. Knipstrom says that the following evidence supports her allegations of discrimination. First, she was older than both Ms. Steck and Mr. Sochan. Second, the senior bylaw officer told both Ms. Steck and Mr. Sochan about a topic that would be on the written assessment. She says the manager told the senior bylaw officer the topics and implies the manager instructed the senior bylaw officer to tell Ms. Steck and Mr. Sochan.
[37] Third, she says the manager was unduly critical of her answers on both the written and oral interview questions. She points to his writing “no tech” next to one of her answers as evidence that his criticisms were linked to age. She says this comment is evidence of stereotypical assumptions about older workers using technology.
[38] Fourth, she says she was more qualified for the job than Ms. Steck. She makes several points to support her position about their relative qualifications, but central to her argument is that the City recognized she was the superior candidate two months earlier when it offered her the temporary position over Ms. Steck. She says “there is no plausible basis to conclude that the relative qualifications of the candidates materially changed” in those two months.
[39] Lastly, Ms. Knipstrom alleges, for the first time in the response to the application to dismiss, that age only became a factor for the City when the competition was for a permanent full-time position. She says that the City “viewed her age as a negative factor given the permanent nature of the role” because she had fewer working years ahead of her than younger candidates. To support her argument, she points to data about the City’s 2021 hires in the bylaw department.
[40] I will first address why I am not persuaded the statistical evidence, on its own or viewed in the context of Ms. Knipstrom’s other evidence, supports her allegations.
2. Statistical evidence
[41] Ms. Knipstrom points to statistical evidence that shows the City did not hire any candidates over 60 for full-time permanent roles in the bylaw department in 2021. She made this argument in response to the City’s evidence that it had hired three people aged between 59 and 60 in the bylaw department in 2021. Ms. Knipstrom says this demonstrates a patten of hiring workers over 60 only for part-time or temporary roles.
[42] Statistical evidence is circumstantial evidence that the Tribunal may use, alone or in combination with other evidence, to draw an inference that a protected characteristic was a factor in an alleged adverse impact: Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users v Downtown Vancouver Business Improvement Association, 2018 BCCA 132 [VANDU] at paras. 88-89.
[43] As the Court of Appeal explained in VANDU:
90 Statistics can show correlations between membership in a particular group and facially neutral characteristics that have legal consequences. This correlation can point to a connection between adverse treatment and protected grounds. Where, as in Kahkewistahaw, solid statistical evidence is lacking, the correlation may not be adequately demonstrated.
[44] In this case, the statistical evidence is inadequate to demonstrate a correlation between age and hiring for permanent, full-time bylaw officer positions. It appears the City ran three competitions for full-time permanent positions in the bylaw department. Those competitions resulted in the City hiring four candidates aged 32, 45, 53, and 53. However, there is no evidence before me about the ages of those who applied for those positions or anything else I could use to infer discrimination in this context. Without other evidence, Ms. Knipstrom’s argument is speculative. In my view, it would not be logical for the Tribunal to conclude that age was a factor in the City’s decision not to hire candidates older than 60 without, at minimum, evidence that candidates over 60 applied for those positions.
[45] I have considered the statistical evidence alone and in context. My conclusion about the statistical evidence’s adequacy to demonstrate a connection between age and the City refusing to hire workers over 60 for permanent positions does not change when viewed in context of the other evidence Ms. Knipstrom refers to.
3. Interview assessment and “no tech” comment
[46] The City argues, and I agree, that the Tribunal’s role is not to review an employer’s assessment of a candidate’s interview performance to determine if the assessment was fair. The Tribunal is not concerned with whether the employer’s decisions were fair: Geraskina v. Immigrant Services Society and another (No. 2), 2008 BCHRT 323 at para. 31. Its role is to determine whether the stated business reasons were genuine or whether they were used to mask discrimination: Li v. Options Community Services, 2020 BCHRT 104 at para. 96, citing Jaffar v. Yaletown Mini Storage (No. 2), 2019 BCHRT 42 at para. 46.
[47] Under s. 27(1)(c), the Tribunal’s task is to determine whether the evidence takes the connection between the assessment and the candidates’ ages out of the realm of conjecture. The City says there is no evidence that age was a factor in its assessment of Ms. Knipstrom or Ms. Steck’s interview answers.
[48] I largely agree with the City that most of Ms. Knipstrom’s complaints about how the City evaluated the candidates are general criticisms about whether the City’s assessment was unfair. For example, she points to a question on the written test that asked candidates to respond to a bylaw complaint concerning elm trees. She says her response met all the criteria set out in the City’s answer key but only got two out of a possible three points, whereas Ms. Steck’s answer met none of the criteria and she got one point. She says if the City had correctly graded their respective answers she would have scored the highest on the written exam.
[49] However, there is nothing on the face of this allegation, or the evidence underlying it, suggesting age played a role in what Ms. Knipstrom says was an incorrect application of the answer key. Therefore, it is speculative to say age was a factor in how the City assessed the candidates’ answers to this question. With one exception, the same reasoning applies to the other instances where Ms. Knipstrom says the manager was overly critical of her responses.
[50] The one exception relates to Ms. Knipstrom’s allegation that the manager’s comment next to one of her oral interview answers suggests stereotypical assumptions about older workers. The interview panel asked candidates about their organizational strategies to ensure their work is done efficiently, and Ms. Knipstrom said she used a paper calendar and notebook. The manager wrote “no tech” and “paper = lots of time” beside his notes of her response.
[51] I agree that, depending on the context, such a comment could reflect stereotypical views. However, I am not persuaded that Ms. Knipstrom has taken it out of the realm of conjecture that the manager’s comment reflects ageist stereotypes in this context.
[52] The manager’s comment is based on Ms. Knipstrom’s actual response to the panel’s question about her organizational strategies. The manager was not assuming she used paper tools or that she did not use technology. She told the panel she used a paper calendar and notebook, and the manager recorded her answer and his opinion that it takes a lot of time.
[53] Ms. Knipstrom and others may not agree that using paper is less efficient than electronic tools. However, as I explained above, that goes to whether the panel fairly evaluated her responses and is not evidence of stereotypical assumptions. Therefore, I find there is no reasonable prospect the “no tech” comment could establish a connection between Ms. Knipstrom’s age and how the City evaluated her interview performance.
[54] My conclusion about the “no tech” comment does not change when viewed together with the other evidence Ms. Knipstrom points to as being capable of establishing a connection between age and not being offered the position. Taken alone or together, it is speculative to say this comment reflects ageist assumptions.
4. Senior bylaw officer and fairness
[55] Central to Ms. Knipstrom’s complaint is that the hiring process was unfair because the senior bylaw officer told Ms. Steck and Mr. Sochan that soil deposition would be on the interview exam. Though the City argues that the senior bylaw officer was not on the hiring panel and had no access to the interview materials, there is evidence that the manager texted him about the competition. There is also evidence that the senior bylaw officer told Ms. Steck and Mr. Sochan to be prepared for questions about soil deposition. Specifically, there are messages between Ms. Knipstrom and both Ms. Steck and Mr. Sochan from after the competition where they both acknowledge the senior bylaw officer told them to be prepared for questions about soil deposition.
[56] However, as the City points out, there is no evidence that the manager directed the senior bylaw officer to assist Ms. Steck and Mr. Sochan because of their age or at all. Similarly, there is no evidence that the senior bylaw officer shared information with Ms. Steck and Mr. Sochan because they are younger than Ms. Knipstrom is.
[57] Rather, there is ample evidence that Ms. Knipstrom and the senior bylaw officer did not have a good working relationship. This includes him reporting performance concerns about her in July 2021 that she says were false, and him being rude and aggressive to her and members of the public. Ms. Knipstrom characterizes his conduct towards her as a “discriminatory pattern,” but she has not pointed to any evidence, viewed on its own or in the context of all the evidence, on which the Tribunal could infer that his conduct was related to her age. Similarly, I see no basis in the evidence on which the Tribunal could conclude the manager sharing information about the competition with the senior bylaw officer was related to the candidates’ ages.
[58] Ms. Knipstrom argues “the evidence given by [the senior bylaw officer and the manager] will likely raise significant credibility issues.” In particular, she says she expects both to deny that the manager disclosed to the senior bylaw officer that soil deposition would be on the assessment, and that he instructed the senior bylaw officer to communicate the interview topics to Ms. Steck or Mr. Sochan. She also says she expects the senior bylaw officer would deny he told Ms. Steck and Mr. Sochan to prepare for soil deposition.
[59] I do not agree these are foundational issues of credibility. This application turns on whether there is no reasonable prospect age was a factor in the City deciding to offer Ms. Steck the permanent position. None of the credibility issues Ms. Knipstrom identifies goes to this issue. In addition, I can only decide this application on the evidence before me. I cannot anticipate what evidence might be called at a hearing on the merits: Chan at para. 77. Therefore, the evidence the manager and senior bylaw officer might give at a hearing is not relevant.
[60] I have no problem accepting that it raises fairness concerns if only some candidates are told even one subject they are to be assessed on in a job competition. However, it is conjecture to connect the manager and senior bylaw officer’s conduct, and the fairness concerns it raises, to Ms. Knipstrom’s age. I have considered the evidence concerning what the senior bylaw officer told Ms. Steck and Mr. Sochan and what the manager told the senior bylaw officer on its own and in context. My conclusion that it is speculative to say there is a connection between Ms. Knipstrom’s age and their conduct is the same when this evidence is viewed on its own or together with the other evidence Ms. Knipstrom relies on.
5. Relative qualifications and seniority
[61] I am also not persuaded that the candidates’ relative skills, experience, and/or seniority, taken on their own or viewed in the context of all the evidence, takes the ageism allegation out of the realm of conjecture.
[62] Ultimately, the parties agree on the relevant collective agreement provisions that applied to the hiring process, except that Ms. Knipstrom emphasises that the City should have considered her “greater seniority.” Under the collective agreement process, candidates must have minimum qualifications to compete for the job. Once this threshold is met, the City is not required to assess the candidate’s relative qualifications, and the competition is based on interview and exam scores. While Ms. Knipstrom may objectively have superior qualifications and/or seniority, that is not how successful candidates were selected by the City, and there is no dispute now that the City was not required to under the relevant collective agreement process. However, even if there was a dispute, it is not the Tribunal’s role to assess whether an employer has complied with the terms of a collective agreement: Tuson v. The Board of Education of School District No. 5 (No. 4), 2020 BCHRT 195 at para. 202.
[63] For the same reason, I do not find any inconsistency between the manager complimenting Ms. Knipstrom on her skills and experience after she was the successful candidate for the 2021 competition with the manager preferring the interview responses of another candidate for the 2022 competition.
[64] As noted above, it is not the Tribunal’s role to assess the merits of an employer’s management decisions generally, include assessing relative qualifications or whether the employer should have taken seniority into account. The Tribunal’s sole concern here is whether it is speculative to say age was a factor in the adverse treatment. In this case, and considered in context, there is no reasonable prospect that the evidence about how the City assessed the candidates’ qualifications does not support this inference.
6. The candidates’ ages
[65] This leaves the candidates’ ages. There is no dispute that Ms. Steck is younger than Ms. Knipstrom. However, viewed on its own or in context, I am not convinced this takes the connection out of the realm of conjecture. As the City points out, the Tribunal has said many times that it is not enough for a complainant to say they are a member of a protected group and they were treated badly: Lin v. Starbucks Coffee Company (Canada) and others, 2022 BCHRT 87 at para. 111. Ms. Knipstrom’s submission about what can be inferred based on her age, versus Ms. Steck’s, goes only slightly beyond that. Any inference that age was a factor based solely on Ms. Steck being younger than Ms. Knipstrom would be weak and easily rebutted by a contextual assessment of the whole of the evidence, as discussed above.
[66] While the evidence suggests Ms. Knipstrom may have legitimate concerns about the fairness of the 2022 hiring process, I am not persuaded that any unfairness was connected to her age. Although Ms. Knipstrom sincerely believes her age affected the outcome, there is no reasonable prospect she will prove a connection between her age and the decision to not offer her the permanent position.
IV CONCLUSION
[67] The complaint is dismissed under s. 27(1)(c) of the Code.
Carol Whittome
Tribunal Member
Human Rights Tribunal