It sounds like an all-too-common Canadian tale. In 1999, Czech immigrant Ladislav Mihaly sought accreditation from the Association of Professional Engineers, Geologists and Geophysicists of Alberta (APEGGA). On account of where he got his two master’s degrees — the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, and the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague — APEGGA explained he needed to pass four exams in addition to the standard National Professional Practice Exam (NPPE). To date he has failed the NPPE three times.
It’s a clear and persistent problem: When we welcome immigrant professionals without fully assessing their skills or potential, everybody can wind up losing. Still. We obviously need professional standards for engineers. If Mr. Mihaly can’t or won’t meet them, there’s not much we can do about it. Right?
Ah, but this is Canada, and Mr. Mihaly has clearly been paying attention. So in 2008, he appealed to the Alberta Human Rights Commission that he was being discriminated against, illegally, on the basis of where he’s from. And on Feb. 6, in a bewildering decision, tribunal chairman Moosa Jiwaji agreed. Not only must APEGGA pay $10,000 in damages to Mr. Mihaly, he ordered, it must within three months “establish a committee … to specifically explore and investigate options to appropriately and individually assess [his] qualifications … with a view to correcting any perceived academic deficiencies.” Mr. Jiwaji suggests offering Mr. Mihaly “exemptions” from the NPPE or “the Fundamentals of Engineering exam” — hey, they’re only fundamentals — perhaps “combined with the implementation of a different method of assessment.” APEGGA is furthermore to “match Mr. Mihaly with a mentor,” provide “networking” opportunities and help him improve his English.
Mr. Mihaly’s argument goes like this: APEGGA deems some international engineering programs “substantially equivalent” to Canadian ones, and thus may exempt their graduates from examination requirements. Canada also has arrangements with various other countries that can result in exemptions. Unfortunately for Mr. Mihaly, his alma maters do not preside over such programs, and the Slovak and Czech Republics are not among those countries. Fortunately for Mr. Mihaly, having thrice failed the only accreditation exam he attempted, he has the nerve to argue he’s being punished for hailing from Czechoslovakia.
It’s nonsense. Firstly, APEGGA protested, the Alberta Human Rights Act bars discrimination against people according to their place of origin, not university degrees. And in any event, APEGGA argued, it didn’t judge Mr. Mihaly according to where he’s from but based on the university programs on his résumé. His résumé would have been treated exactly the same had he been from Russia or Poland or the moon.
Promisingly, Mr. Jiwaji cites in his decision an opinion of Alberta’s Court of Queen’s Bench that “‘place of origin’ cannot be stretched to include the place where the person received their PhD degree.” But then, alas, he decides he’s “more inclined” to favour some other opinions.
In Giggey v. York Region District School Board, an Ontario Human Rights tribunal supported a generous interpretation of “place of origin” (though it declined to force the board to enroll a child born Jan. 1 in Hong Kong as if he had been born Dec. 31 in York Region, despite the inherent time zone discrimination).
In Bitonti v. British Columbia (Ministry of Health), a British Columbia Human Rights tribunal “concluded that while ‘place of origin’ does not include place of medical training per se, its interpretation is broader than simply place of birth.”
And in Neiznnaski v. University of Toronto, an Ontario Board of Inquiry determined that while people are “ostensibly … discriminated against on the basis of their foreign credentials,” because people tend to go to school where they’re from, “the effect often is to exclude groups linked to their place of origin, race, colour or ethnic origin.”
Neat, eh? You don’t have to have been discriminated against illegally per se. Legal discrimination against people who share a protected characteristic can simply add up to illegal discrimination. The possibilities for future complaints are endless. Maclean’s ranks Manitoba’s universities way down the tables. Uncontroversially, a prospective employer will be more impressed with a degree from the University of Toronto than one from Brandon or Winnipeg. But maybe the cumulative effect of all those decisions is anti-Manitoba discrimination!
It’s all well and good to laugh. Unlike many of the poor schmoes human rights tribunals put through the wringer, the engineers have the money to defend themselves. APEGGA will appeal the ruling, and some superior court will hopefully blow it to smithereens. But these clay pigeons cost a lot of money. At the end of the day, legalities aside, Mr. Jiwaji wants to ensure the employment of an incompetent engineer under the banner of human rights. In the court of popular opinion, it’s not clear how long Canada’s current human rights apparatus can survive decision-making like that.
National Post
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