Mock Human Rights Tribunal:  Age Discrimination in Accommodation

Introduction:

In Canada, age discrimination is prohibited under Canadian and provincial human rights acts.  People cannot be discriminated against because of their age in areas such as housing, shops and provincial government programs.

However, sometimes people are discriminated against anyway.  When a person feels that they have been refused a good or service because of their age they can bring a complaint to the human rights commission in their province.  Complaints are investigated and a tribunal is held to determine if discrimination occurred.

In this exercise, the students will hold a mock human rights tribunal where a senior was refused accommodation because of his or her age.  Assign each student a role as described in the Set up: Part I.  If there are more students than roles, either assign journalist or observer roles or organize 2 separate groups of students and hold 2 separate tribunals.
 

Objectives:

• to discover circumstances faced by older persons;
• to understand how and why age discrimination can occur;
• to learn that in most circumstances age discrimination is illegal; and
• to see how mechanisms to confront discrimination work in Canada.

Suggested time:  2 classes of 1 and 1/2 hours each.

Materials:

1. Photocopies of the Fact Situations that follow; and
2. Copy of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
 
 

Evaluation based upon:

• ability to relate a fact situation to others;
• clarity of argument to the Hearing Officers; and
• clarity and creativeness of written decision by Hearing Officers.

Set up:

PART I:

This activity is set up as a mock hearing at a human rights tribunal on a case where someone has been discriminated against because of their age.  Assign students one of the following roles:

Senior (1)
Apartment manager (1)
Investigators (2)
Hearing Officers (3)
Lawyers (6 - two each acting for the complainant, the tribunal and the apartment manager)

Using the Fact Situations that follow, students act out their parts:

1. The Senior will write and file a complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal.  A complaint is written like a story with each paragraph numbered.
2. The Apartment Manager will write a reply to the complaint, using the same style as the complaint.
3. The Investigators will interview both the Senior and the Apartment Manager and write out the details, to be given to the Hearing Officers.
4. The Lawyers will also interview the Senior, the Apartment Manager and the Investigators.  Following the interview, the Lawyers will decide on one to two points that they would like to make to the Hearing Officers.

PART II:

Once the interviews are completed, the classroom is set up as follows:
 

The Lawyers will then present their arguments to the Hearing Officers in turn (each Lawyer should present one point only).

Following the presentations, the Hearing Officers will take 5-10 minutes to write up a decision.  They can use the oral points from the presentation and the Senior’s complaint and the reply written by the Apartment Manager.  The decision is written by consensus.  However, if one person disagrees, she or he can write a separate opinion, called a minority opinion.
 

Fact Situations (students should ad-lib where necessary):

Senior/Complainant: 

You are a pensioner. You are 75 years old  and have lived by yourself since your husband/wife died five years ago.  You are fit and are able to take care of yourself and your needs.  Recently, you decided that you wanted to move from your house into an apartment building.  You wanted to live in the same building as a friend of yours and close to the local shopping centre and pharmacy.

You made an appointment to see an available apartment in your friend’s building.  The apartment manager showed you around and pointed out the advantages to living in the building.  However, when you mentioned your age, the apartment manager began to ask you questions wondering whether you could look after yourself, what your health was like, whether you could walk up the front steps of the building in wintertime.

After showing you around the apartment manager told you to call back the next day.  When you called back, you were informed that the apartment had already been rented to someone else.

You think that the manager just did not want to rent to someone your age.

Apartment Manager:

You are the apartment manager at 132 Hillside Drive.  There are 100 units in the building, and right now there are 3 one-bedrooms available.  When apartments are available you generally put up an advertisement.  You show it to everyone who wants to see it.  Then you decide on one or two potential candidates and call their banks and previous landlords.  If these references are acceptable, you offer it to your top choice of tenant.

Recently, you showed the one bedroom on the 15th floor to a senior citizen.  While the senior who came to look at it seemed very interested, you began to get worried that it would be difficult to have someone as old as 75 living in your building.  You are not ageist, but you know that the health of older people generally is not that good and some find it hard to take care of themselves.  You do not want to deal with hospitals or ambulances at your building all the time.  In addition, you are worried that you might have to make alterations in the building to accommodate this senior and permits for renovations are usually difficult to obtain.

You do not want to have any problems with any of your other tenants and are worried that you may not be able to rent out other apartments if too many older people live in the building.

Thus, you decided to rent the apartment to someone else.

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