Emploi-Québec discriminated against single mother
A Muslim woman is “relieved and pleased” with a decision in her favour by the Quebec Human Rights Commission, following an incident at an Emploi-Québec office in 2015.
The Ministère du Travail, de L’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale, which runs Emploi Québec, has been asked to pay Aisha Forsythe $7,000, and Emploi- Québec employee Lise Léonard has been asked to pay $1,000 as compensation for what happened.
Forsythe was a single mother of four children hoping to re-enter the workforce when a meeting with Léonard left her in a state of distress.
“I went into the Emploi- Québec office on St-Jean Blvd. on the West Island,” Forsythe told the Montreal Gazette Thursday. “I was meeting an agent to discuss connecting with job agencies, to find me a job. I had made an appointment and brought my resumé so they could look it over and make improvements.”
From the outset, according to Forsythe, the agent was unpleasant and spoke to her in a condescending tone.
“She started criticizing every shortcoming, and asking, ‘Why don’t you speak French?’”
Forsythe explained that she was from Newfoundland, that she had lived in Barbados, and that she now lived in an anglophone neighbourhood on the West Island and sent her children to English school, so she had not had much opportunity to learn French.
“She didn’t think that was good enough,” Forsythe recounted. “She started criticizing my decision to stay home, and asked why I went to university to get a bachelor’s degree if I wasn’t going to work.
“After that, she started picking at small things on my resumé. At the end of the interview, she started on the hijab and said that I had made the decision to put myself in a ghetto. She said I would not find work easily with that, that Quebec doesn’t accept that kind of thing, that it’s a secular society and that I would need to go to an Arab country to get a job.”
Forsythe emerged from the meeting distressed. She broke down in tears in front of her sister and nephew, who had been waiting for her. Then she gathered herself, went to the counter and asked to speak to a manager so she could file a complaint.
Although the manager took notes and said they would speak to the employee, Forsythe returned the next day to learn that no complaint had been filed. She then filed a formal complaint and, on the advice of a friend, got in touch with the Centre for Research-Action on Race Relations (CRARR), which took her case to the Quebec Human Rights Commission.
Four years later, Forsythe is relieved to have some resolution to the situation, even if she herself has moved on. She never did find a job in Quebec, she noted; instead she went back to school, earning a master’s degree in Information Studies from McGill University.
She and her family moved to Cambridge, Ont., last year, where she has found work and integrated into a vibrant Muslim community.
“It wasn’t a direct result of that situation,” she said of her decision to leave the province, “but it was very discouraging and disheartening to face that from a government service.”
The Ministère du Travail has until March 29 to comply with the Quebec Human Rights Commission’s decision, following which the case goes to the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal.
Forsythe has already scored an important victory on many fronts, according to Fo Niemi, co-founder and executive director of the CRARR.
“It’s very positive and very interesting because of who she is,” Niemi said. “She has multiple identities: as a unilingual anglophone, who is not racialized; she was also a single mom on social assistance trying to go back to work; and a Muslim woman.”
The case will help anglophones experiencing discrimination while using government services, Niemi said, as well as Muslim women, who have been increasingly targeted of late.
“In the present social and political context, it’s a small step toward greater equality and acceptance,” he said.
“There is so much Islamophobia toward Muslim women. This decision will certainly make people think twice, and also remind the Quebec government that before it starts legislating to ban religious clothing, it should also ensure its services do not discriminate in that way.”