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Employment lawyers propose mandatory mediation to ease backlog at Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario

Published: November 15, 2024

Category: Labour and Employment

The Employment Lawyers Association of Ontario (ELAO) is urging the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) to adopt mandatory mediation, a move they believe will streamline case resolutions and alleviate the tribunal’s significant backlog.

“Mandatory mediation, especially at the Superior Court level, has been really successful,” said Andrew Monkhouse, managing partner at Monkhouse Law in Toronto and president of the ELAO. “The pilot program in that has been exceptionally successful. That shows that automatic referral to mediation, or having mediation be a required step in the process, can be dealt with well.”

Mandatory mediation is already in place at the Superior Court level in certain jurisdictions across Ontario, including Toronto, Ottawa, and Essex County (Windsor), he said.

Currently, the HRTO offers mediation on a two-party consent basis, requiring both parties to agree before proceeding. Monkhouse argues that making mediation an automatic step would increase settlement rates, even in cases where parties are initially skeptical about its usefulness.

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