Yukon Human Rights Commission struggles with growing number of complaints

The Yukon Human Rights Commission says its caseload has ballooned this year, and it's struggling to keep up.

With more than 100 active complaints now before the commission, some people are waiting between 18 months and two years for an investigator to be assigned to their case. 

"We've hired more staff but, you know, we just can't keep up," said Vida Nelson, general counsel for the commission. 

Nelson told CBC News she's projecting by the end of December, there will be more than double the complaints this year over last. 

"That number seems to be increasing every year," said Nelson.

The commission is independent from government and serves to help enforce the Human Rights Act. Yukoners who feel they've been unfairly discriminated against can submit a complaint, which may be investigated. 

Not all complaints are accepted for investigation by the commission. Each undergoes an initial screening, and if accepted, goes in the long queue waiting for an investigator who will eventually gather evidence on the case. It may or may not proceed to a tribunal for adjudication.  

"We're really trying our best," said Nelson, pointing out that parties can choose to settle informally before an investigation. "We can usually get to that very quickly but yeah, I think it's really unfortunate that complaints take so long to investigate." 

For Constance Backhouse, a professor of law at the University of Ottawa, the wait time in human rights cases is a problem of massive importance across Canada. 

"We are not putting the resources into the resolution of these very significant problems," she said.

While Backhouse sees the spike in cases in many provinces and territories as a sign that more people are finding their voice and understanding human rights, she said governments aren't making the issue enough of a priority.

"That seems to me to be a terrible shame. You need more investigators, you need more adjudicators — obviously all of these things take money," Backhouse said.

It's not clear exactly why the Yukon is seeing such a boom in complaints. Unlike some other jurisdictions like B.C., the territory did not receive many COVID-related complaints.

"I think a lot of it might have to do with increased public education sessions we've been doing," said Nelson.

"We've been training a lot of people on human rights as part of our mandate and I think just that training is leading people to be aware of what we are and what we do — and so that's leading to a lot of complaints," she said, adding the Yukon's population also continues to grow.

Although each Canadian jurisdiction's human rights process is somewhat different, there are parallels and similarities.

"Our new baseline is between two and three times greater than our historic baseline volume," said Emily Ohler, chair of the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal.

Earlier this year, the B.C. tribunal was given a boost in its funding. With that, Ohler hopes to not only tackle some of the backlog, but pilot different approaches to find the most efficient way to deal with the volume of cases.

The Yukon Human Rights Commission is also hoping for more funding. Over the past five years, the commission has received additional project money from Ottawa — approximately $511,100 per year — to address sexual harassment in the workplace. The money could not be used for complaints, but it did help cover rent and some other core expenses for the commission. That funding ends in March.

Nelson told CBC News the commission is now in talks with the Yukon government's Department of Justice over funding.

"What we call our core budget has actually decreased," said Nelson.

With the special funding drying up, she hopes there will be more core funding to help with things like rent and staffing.

"I guess my hope is that the commission is funded adequately and that we're able to meet our core duties to investigate but also provide public education, because those are things you can't measure," Nelson said.

"You can't measure how many people choose not to discriminate because they've received access to that information and know more about what the law is on human rights."