Centre for the Study of Living Standards
Centre d’étude des niveaux de vie
Andrew Sharpe (Executive Director/Directeur exécutif)
Don Drummond (Chair/Président)

604-170 Laurier Ave. W
Ottawa, Ontario
K1P 5V5

Board of Directors/Conseil d’administration
Donna Feir
Jock A. Finlayson
Pierre Fortin

David Green
Helen Heslop
Michael Horgan

Maureen O’Neil
Lars Osberg
Richard Van Loon

Telephone : 613-233-8891
csls@csls.ca
www.csls.ca

Economics Should Play a Greater Role in the
Adjudication of Human Rights Claims
Press Release – Ottawa, August 18, 2021
Today the Ottawa-based Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS), a non-profit
economic research organization, released a study by Research Associates David Lewis and
Ian Currie entitled Should Economics Play a Greater Role in the Adjudication of Human Rights
Claims? They focus on two issues. First, how to establish the magnitude of monetary awards forinjury to dignity due to discrimination, including racial discrimination and sexual harassment.
Second, how to ensure against the loss of societal benefits that may arise from successful claims
by service providers that their duty to accommodate people with disabilities (and others) would
constitute an undue hardship on their organizations.
The authors find that economic analysis has a key role to play in relation to both issues. It canhelp counter what some legal scholars have found to be “inconsistency, incoherence andunfairness” in the granting of awards for injury to dignity. Here, economic analysis could
provide an objective and independent evidentiary baseline for monetary awards. They also findthat the application of Cost-Benefit Analysis, together with government assistance in some cases,
could help ensure against the loss of societal benefits arising from successful claims of unduehardship.
The study concludes that the wider application of evidence from a program of economic analysis
and the use of Cost-Benefit Analysis could result in an increase in the magnitude of dignity

awards and fewer successful undue hardship cases.
Dignity
As a case study, the authors examined public data pertaining to the British Columbia HumanRights Tribunal (BCHRT) over a 23-year period, 1998 to 2020. They find that:•growth in dignity awards kept pace with or exceeded inflation in each area ofdiscrimination examined over the period of the study;•

growth has been concentrated in six of fourteen areas of discrimination, namely: racial
discrimination, disability, gender, gender identity or expression, sexual harassment, andpregnancy; and,•average awards for injury to dignity varied markedly by area of discrimination over theperiod.

Although some grounds for discrimination are drawing higher average monetary awards forinjury to dignity than others, the authors find some evidence that, over the long term, awards fordignity appear to converge, regardless of the kind of discrimination causing the injury. In thecase of BCHRT awards the size of average awards for injury to dignity due to discrimination on
the basis of disability, racial discrimination, and sexual harassment (together representing about
68 percent of total awards over the study period) are strikingly similar over the study period.
Should such convergence hold in the case of the BCHRT, and also other Canadian human rights
tribunals, then it might suggest that “dignity is dignity” regardless of the kind of discrimination
causing the injury. This would not foreclose different award amounts based on case-specificfactors such as the extent and severity of the discriminatory practice. Economic research could
shed further light on this possibility.
The Duty to Accommodate
Under federal and provincial human rights codes, employers and service providers have a duty toaccommodate employees and members of the public through the removal of discriminatory
barriers. This duty applies “up to point of undue hardship” for the entity providing theaccommodation.
Where employers and service providers claim that undue hardship makes it impossible to makethe accommodation in question, the authors conclude that the use of Cost-Benefit Analysis
would help prevent undervaluation of accommodation and that this would help avoid what theSupreme Court of Canada has called an unreasonable focus on costs in such cases.
In situations where Cost-Benefit Analysis indicates that the accommodation in question is
worthwhile to society as a whole but not to the service provider, then the authors indicate thatfederal or provincial funds should be available to ensure that the accommodation is made. Theysuggest that federal and provincial human rights tribunals may wish to consider the incorporation

of Cost-Benefit Analysis, along with the necessary governance requirements into theiradministration of undue hardship cases.
For additional information, please contact:
David Lewis
Email dlewis1@bell.net
CSLS Executive Director Andrew Sharpe.
Email: andrew.sharpe@csls.ca, 613-233-8891

The Centre for the Study of Living Standards (CSLS) is a national, independent, Ottawabased not-for-profit research organization. Its primary objective is to contribute to a better
understanding of trends and determinants of productivity, living standards, and economic
wellbeing in Canadians through research.