Newsletter

April 2014

One more reason to ditch the human rights commission

Barry Cooper

Two
weeks ago, the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of
Alberta (APEGA) filed an appeal in the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench. The
respondents were Ladislav Mihaly and the Alberta Human Rights Commission.

This case provides additional evidence why the human rights commission needs to
be abolished.

APEGA was established in 1920 to regulate the practice of engineering, much as
the College of Physicians and Surgeons does with doctors, or the law society
with lawyers. Today, there are more than 72,000 members. Each year, APEGA
receives around 9,000 applications, a quarter of whom are foreign educated.

APEGA developed procedures to ensure that persons designated as professional
engineers are qualified. It administers “confirmatory exams,” a Fundamentals of
Engineering exam, and a National Professional Practice Examination, which all
applicants, Canadian or foreign, have to pass.

The
complainant, Mihaly, attended the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava
and the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague. His educational pedigree
meant that he was required to write the fundamentals exam, but only three
confirmatory exams instead of nine. Like everybody, he had to write the National
Professional Practice Examination.

In
1999, he failed the National Professional Practice Examination. In 2000, he
failed to show up for any exams. In 2003 and 2006, his file was reactivated, and
again, he failed to write any exams. On Aug. 5, 2008, he filed a complaint with
the human rights commission

Tribunal chair Moosa Jiwaji noted that Mihaly “had some difficulty articulating
his argument.” Mihaly’s e-mails, reproduced in Jiwaji’s decision, indicate he
could barely write English. Jiwaji added, however, that Mihaly was adept at
communicating “his emotions,” notably his “frustration” and his sense of “injury
to his dignity.”

In
fact, Mihaly was frustrated because APEGA applied consistent standards. By
asking for special treatment, any injury to his dignity was self-inflicted.

With the third party, chairman Jiwaji, we enter a world of systematic mistakes.
Jiwaji made a number of errors in law that even a non-lawyer can spot. For
example, he instructed APEGA to consider exempting Mihaly from the professional
practice exam, when Alberta law required the opposite.

In
addition, Jiwaji made several findings that never were in evidence and several
others that never were addressed either by Mihaly or by APEGA. He even made
findings contrary to the evidence. He relied on the pseudo-jurisprudence of
other human rights commissions and ignored contrary (and genuine)
jurisprudence by the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench.

Jiwaji’s views on the law, to say nothing of his opinions of immigrants and of
persons in his former homeland, Kenya, move us into very weird territory indeed.

In
this decision, Jiwaji states that APEGA’s “one size fits all” approach to
determine professional standards was “unhelpful” to foreign-trained engineers.
He preferred a “holistic” approach. This is palpable nonsense.

Engineering standards are not discretionary: bridges either stand up or fall
down. Confirmatory exams and exams on engineering fundamentals are central to
professional certification. Period.

Impartial standards are analogous to the impartiality of the law itself. Jiwaji
announced last fall, however, that “a Constitution means DICK!!” He also thought
it was a good idea to rid Nairobi of illegal immigrants: “get rid of all those
individuals who are living in Kenya on fake papers. Do DNA tests on all of
them.” As commentator Ezra Levant observed on his TV show, this amounts to
ethnic cleansing.

When she was running for the PC leadership, Alison Redford promised to reform
the human rights commission, starting with the section dealing with freedom of
expression. Today, the first step in reform on the way to abolition requires
that Moosa Jiwaji be fired.

Barry Cooper is a professor of political science at the University of Calgary
and a senior fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.

Calgary
Herald, March 4, 2014.