The B.C. and Yukon St. John Society and St. John Ambulance Canada are being accused of discrimination against deaf and hard of hearing people.
A complaint to the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal launched by the Okanagan Valley Association of the Deaf on behalf of others in the deaf community alleges the life-saving organizations have an ongoing policy or practice of refusing to fund sign language interpreters for deaf students in their first-aid courses.
The complaint points to occasions in 2013 and 2017 when St. John denied interpreter requests for courses in Kelowna and Burnaby.
In November 2017, for example, the complaint says a counsellor for the B.C. Provincial School for the Deaf, contacted both the Burnaby and New Westminster branches of the St. John Society to arrange private first-aid training for students at the Burnaby-based deaf school.
She advised the societies that their first-aid instructors would need an ASL interpreter to make sure the students could access the information properly.
The response from the Burnaby St. John branch stated: “Interpreters are welcome into the class for private group courses, however that is up to the customer to secure. Unfortunately we are not able to book or fund interpreters.”
The St. John Society and St. John Ambulance applied to have the human rights complaint dismissed.
They argued the evidence from the association wasn’t enough to show the life-saving organizations had an officially established policy for denying sign-language-interpreter requests since the two sets of circumstances outlined in the complaint happened four years apart.
The association argued that, even if the organizations don’t have an official policy against providing sign language interpreters, “inadequate or non-existent accommodation policies and procedures would constitute an ongoing state of affairs that is discriminatory.”
In a ruling last month, tribunal member Norman Trerise decided it was in the public interest to allow the complaint to proceed.
