Former public servant receives $1.5M settlement over discrimination

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After a legal battle that lasted more than a decade, a former public servant has won a settlement of $1.5 million from the federal government.

“I almost died a few times, close to suicide,” Chris Hughes told National Post. “It was a huge weight off my shoulders.”

In 2007, Hughes went to the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, alleging that Transport Canada had discriminated against him on the basis of mental disability and eliminated him from competitions for four jobs he had been seeking.

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Hughes suffers from depression that he says was brought on after he blew the whistle on age discrimination at the Canada Border Services Agency and an illegal practice by a colleague at the Canada Revenue Agency. He worked for those agencies for 10 years, between 1995 and 2005. The Canadian Human Rights Tribunal said Hughes described his departure as being forced to resign as part of a settlement.

He revealed his depression in job interviews for four positions at Transport Canada between 2005 and 2007.

In a 2014 Canadian Human Rights Tribunal decision, tribunal member Robert Malo found the “subtle scent of discrimination” existed regarding Hughes’ 2005 application to Transport Canada for a job as a marine intelligence officer, an anti-terrorism position classified as top secret.

The tribunal said the department’s reasons for screening out Hughes “appear non-credible” and were a “pretext” that eliminated Hughes from the job competition. As well, because of Hughes’s history with the Canada Revenue Agency and Canada Border Services Agency, the tribunal found that Hughes’s challenges in providing references “significantly influenced” the hiring board.

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What followed was a tortuous legal fight, with multiple different court and human rights tribunal filings as the case wound towards a settlement. Hughes took the government department then known as Human Resources and Social Development Canada to the tribunal, and won in 2012. He also took the CRA and CBSA to the tribunal over the years.

In 2022, Hughes and the government settled, with the government agreeing to pay him $1.535 million. The details of the settlement only became public recently when there was a court dispute over the implementation of the settlement, Hughes said.

I lost everything. My first marriage fell apart. Had to sell my house, dissolve all my assets to survive

Chris Hughes

The settlement follows a 2019 tribunal decision, which awarded him around $518,000 from Transport Canada. The money was paid, but the government also sought judicial review of the tribunal decision, continuing the legal battle.

All told, Hughes told National Post, he has been paid around $2.4 million in settlements — potentially one of the largest discrimination payouts in Canadian history.

But the legal battle took a toll on Hughes. The government, for example, tried to claim that he was a vexatious litigant during the court battles to enforce the judgments from the human rights tribunal.

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“I lost everything. My first marriage fell apart. Had to sell my house, dissolve all my assets to survive. I was like, deeply in debt, many times, waiting for some payments to come, begging people for money so I could buy food,” Hughes said.

He splits his time now between Canada and Thailand, where he has a family that he’s hoping to bring to Canada with him.

“I might try to find a job with a department that I haven’t had a prior conflict with, yes,” said Hughes, when asked if he would consider returning to work for the federal government.

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