A colorblind aspiring firefighter will receive more than $100,000 from the City of Quebec, which was guilty of discrimination by refusing to hire him.
This is what the Human Rights Tribunal has just decided, ordering the municipality to offer a job as a firefighter to Sébastien Samson-Thibault.
Between 2012 and 2015, the man went through all the stages of the hiring process for the Quebec Fire Protection Service (SPCIQ) – even taking measures to adjust his uniform – before being dismissed because of his color blindness. He can’t distinguish between red and green.
Upon learning of the decision,[son] world is collapsing,” Mr. Samson-Thibault recalled while testifying in court. Originally from Rivière-du-Loup, the young man planned to move to Quebec and start a family there. He is “in tears” and completely “confused”, describes the judgment published on Wednesday.
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Sebastien Samson-Thibault
However, the decision of the SPCIQ was discriminatory and must be reversed, determined judge Christian Brunelle.
The City of Quebec applied selection criteria in terms of quality of sight that were stricter than North American standards for hiring firefighters, to the point of being exaggerated.
“The employer imposes a standard so rigid that it is not reasonably necessary to ensure the candidate, his co-workers and the public a level of safety compatible with the quasi-constitutional duty to accommodate which is incumbent on him,” judge Brunelle ruled.
“We don’t make cookies”
The City of Quebec pleaded that fighting fires is such a risky activity that it cannot afford to send firefighters who do not have a perfect ability to distinguish their environment.
“We carefully weighed the decision” not to hire Mr. Samson-Thibault, assured the head of the service, Christian Paradis, testifying. “It was not managed on a corner of the table. »
PHOTO ERICK LABBÉ, LE SOLEIL ARCHIVES
Quebec Fire Chief Christian Paradis
“It’s robust, the job of firefighter, he added. We don’t make cookies. »
But Sébastien Samson-Thibault is color blind from birth, which has not prevented him from occupying a position as a firefighter in Rivière-du-Loup since 2009. He has also risen to the rank of chief of operations of this service.
Before the Human Rights Tribunal, he explained at length how he had developed ways of understanding his surroundings despite his color blindness, by relying on the position or intensity of a warning light rather than to its color, for example. The firefighter added that despite his difficulties doing so, he still had some ability to distinguish red from green.
The rejection of Mr. Samson-Thibault’s candidacy is based on “preconceived ideas that wrongly associate a person’s inability to distinguish colors perfectly with an insurmountable handicap, regardless of his real abilities and its ability to remedy it by compensatory means developed with experience,” concluded Justice Brunelle.
$110,000 compensation
Only solution, according to Judge Brunelle: order the City of Quebec to offer a job as a firefighter to Sébastien Samson-Thibault and reimburse him the difference between the salary he would have made there since 2015 and the salary he received at Riviere-du-Loup.
Everything indicates that he would already have such a position if he had not been the victim of discrimination in 2015.
Excerpt from the judgment rendered by Christian Brunelle
In addition to the salary difference, the City will have to pay $10,000 to the man for the psychological impact caused by his rejection. “Mr. Samson-Thibault experienced his exclusion from the selection process very hard,” noted the court. He seriously questioned himself, shaken by the idea that he could constitute a danger to others when his primary mission is to protect them from it. His self-confidence was affected. »
Total: $110,000.
On Wednesday, the City of Quebec did not want to indicate whether it intended to appeal the judgment.
“The City takes note of the judgment in this case and will analyze the next steps to come,” said spokesperson Karine Desbiens. She will not comment further on the situation. »
Joined in Rivière-du-Loup, Sébastien Samson-Thibault also reserved his comments. “I’ll wait since they have 30 days to appeal,” he said. He was represented by the Commission des droits de la personne et de la jeunesse.