I will first outline the inadequacies of the existing human rights legislation and then outline the forms an affirmative action program might take. Existing legislation All of Canadian statutes now in effect are designed to provide a remedy, after the fact, for acts of discrimination. For a variety of reasons, including low educational level, fear of reprisal, alienation from governmental authority and the belief that discrimination is an inescapable fact of life, the most severely disadvantaged individuals will often not file a complaint even if the discrimination has been blatant. Thus, a B.C. case held that proof a trailer park owner was biased in general against native people was insufficient, and that the complainant would have to prove that the refusal to rent him space on the particular occasion at issue had been motivated by racial prejudice. Obviously, such proof can be very difficult to obtain.
Proof is especially difficult in cases concerning the denial of employment.
Often, the choice is between applicants with qualifications that are about equal, and it is impossible to prove that prejudice was the motivating factor in the decision. Biases can be subtle, and the employer who has made an intuitive choice between two applicants may not even be aware that stereotyped assumptions about one of the applicants entered into the choice. Women and minority groups have, in the past, been excluded from many academic and vocational education programs. Sometimes this exclusion has been intentional and sometimes it has been the unintended consequence of factors such as lack of income. In either event, existing human rights legislation does nothing to remedy the problem.