Cashin v. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 13 May 1988
Annual Review of Population Law 15: 63
1988
ISSN/ISBN: 0364-3417 PMID: 12289638 Document Number: 380061
The applicant charged the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) with discrimination on the basis of marital status in violation of the Canadian Human Rights Act when it refused to renew her contract as a reporter. The CBC argued that its actions were justified because it believed that the public might find the reporter's objectivity suspect because she was married to a man who had recently been appointed to a prominent public position. It pointed to Paragraph 42.1(6)(b) of the Act, which allowed exceptions for bona fide occupational requirements. The Court rejected this argument. It held that the applicant had been discriminated against on marital status because she belonged to a group of women who adopted their husbands' surnames upon marriage, rather than keeping their own, and was not renewed for that reason. It also ruled that the CBC's justification was inadequate and that a bona fide occupational requirement could not be establish by merely impressionistic evidence of an assumed bias on the part of the public.