Supreme Court sides with Bombardier in discrimination suit
MONTREAL — The Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Thursday that Bombardier Inc. did not racially discriminate against a Canadian pilot by denying him training in 2004.
In 2010, the Quebec Human Rights Tribunal l evied a $319,000 fine against Bombardier for refusing to train Javed Latif, a Canadian citizen from Pakistan. The Quebec Court of Appeal overruled the tribunal ruling and the case went before Canada’s highest court.
It had been argued that Latif was a victim of racial profiling by U.S. authorities and that Bombardier “acted as a conduit for their decision” when refusing to train Latif.
In its judgment released Thursday morning, the Supreme Court said there was a lack of evidence showing a clear connection “between Mr. Latif’s ethnic or national origin and the decision of the U.S. authorities, and therefore Bombardier’s decision to deny Mr. Latif’s training request.”
Latif moved to Canada with his family in 1997 and received his Canadian citizenship in 2001.
He already had 25 years of pilot experience with the Pakistani air force, but applied for training with Bombardier using his U.S. pilot licence in 2004 after being offered a job to fly a Challenger 604 aircraft.
He was initially accepted but then denied by the Bombardier pilot training centre because a security check showed he had been identified as a “threat to aviation or national security by U.S. authorities.” Following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, all non-U. S. citizens wanting to train under a U.S. pilot licence had to undergo a security check.
Latif figured it was a case of mistaken identity. He tried to do his training under his Canadian licence, but was again refused. Bombardier said at the time that it had to abide by the U.S. decision or risk serious “economic and social consequences.”
Latif was never told why he was on the threat list. Four years after finding out he was on it in 2004, he was removed from it without any explanation and was able to get his training. In the years between, he struggled to find work, he testified in court, stating that he only made a total of roughly $67,000 during that time.
“Subsequent to 2004, 2005, I stopped getting any job offers because by now, in the industry, it was known that Javed Latif is a persona non grata,” he testified, adding that he had unfairly been labelled a terrorist.
Ultimately, the Supreme Court ruled there was never sufficient evidence to show that Latif’s background played a role in him failing the security check.
Notably, the Supreme Court ruled that neither party knew why the U.S. department of justice had flagged Latif.
Latif’s lawyer, Catherine McKenzie, said this week that U.S. law at the time made it impossible for non-residents to know why they were considered a threat by the American government.
She added that she did think “the proof was made that the U.S. system was systematically discriminating against Muslims and people from Pakistan and the Middle East at that time.”
The judgment says it’s the first time the Supreme Court has heard a case involving a form of discrimination allegedly coming from a decision made by an authority outside of Canada.