Lawyers in a Nova Scotia class action lawsuit against the Canadian military will seek to put a hold on the case while they join a class action filed in Federal Court against the Canadian Armed Forces.
According to Kate Boyle, one of the lawyers in the Nova Scotia case, plaintiffs in four provinces are seeking permission to sue the CAF together for discrimination.
Boyle represents Glynis Rogers, the lead plaintiff in a sexual discrimination lawsuit filed against the Canadian Forces in November 2016. She said it made sense that her firm join with others on the case in Federal Court, which was filed after Rogers’ case. The proposed class action would combine suits from Nova Scotia, Ontario, Quebec, and British Colombia.
The amalgamated class action includes the case of Sherry Heyder, a Thunder Bay, Ont. reservist who first joined the military in 1988. According to her statement of claim, Heyder was discriminated against based on her gender and removed from basic training because she is a woman.
In her original statement of claim, Rogers alleges she experienced harassment and sexual assault by other members of the military while at the Royal Military College (RMC), in Kingston, Ont., and while stationed at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Borden. In her statement of claim, she alleges that belittling comments were made about her when she won an award at RMC and she was raped by a male CF member at CFB Borden in 2012. The male member was initially court-martialled, but appealed the decision and was later acquitted by a military tribunal.
Boyle said the decision to put a stay on proceedings on the Rogers case in Nova Scotia ensures there won’t be overlap with the case in Federal Court. Combining the cases will also ensure they don’t get bogged down trying to decide which one can proceed and move the issue forward.
She said they have informed the judge in the Rogers case they would be seeking the stay two weeks ago, but it has not been confirmed yet. The case would remain in the court system but not move forward for the duration of the stay.
Jonathan Shapiro, a law professor at Dalhousie University, said it is uncommon for class action lawsuits to amalgamate into larger ones, but in this case it makes sense as it will put increased pressure on the government to settle rather than go to trial. He said this case follows a recent string of lawsuits filed against the CAF having to do with gender issues.
“There’s some smoke because everyone understands the military has traditionally treated women very badly,” he said. “There’s definitely something there, but whether or not the class action will succeed, impossible to say.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for the CAF said the military does not tolerate discrimination or harassment. They said the Department of National Defence is responding to the lawsuit and and the issue of harassment continues to be an ongoing priority.
Shapiro said the military is an environment where abuses are prone to take place because it has traditionally been male-dominated. Despite this, he said it is hard to pin down a specific incident, which is what a class action lawsuit needs to succeed.
Shapiro said it is unlikely that the case will make it all the way to trial. He said the majority of class actions settle out of court, but that process could take up to 10 years. The amount of evidence and moving parts means the cases do not move quickly.
A certification hearing will be held in July 2018 to determine whether the four separate cases can be combined into a single class action.