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Alberta Human Rights Tribunal Allows Additional Complainant

In Rodd v Autism Edmonton, 2025 AHRC 4 (K Scott), the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal allowed an application by a complainant to add a second complainant (her daughter) to a human rights complaint, several years after the initial complaint was filed.
This is important because there are not many cases in Alberta considering when it would be appropriate to allow an additional complainant to be added to a human rights complaint by amendment.
Facts
The following were some of the pertinent facts summarized by the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal:
- The complainant Kara Rodd filed a complaint in January, 2022 alleging that the respondent, Autism Edmonton, discriminated against heron the grounds of physical and mental disability in the provision of services under Section 4 of the Alberta Human Rights Act;
- The director dismissed her complaint and the complainant requested a review. One of her arguments was that her daughter should be considered as a complainant. The Chair declined to do consider her daughter a complainant, but invited her to make an application to add her daughter as a complainant
- Rodd brought an application seeking to add her daughter pursuant to Sections 14.1(a) and 20.4(b) of the Bylaws of the Tribunal.
Analysis / Conclusion
The Alberta Human Rights Tribunal first set out the test for when an existing complaint may be amended:
[6] […] A complaint may be amended where:
The amendment is timely and made at the earliest opportunity;
The ground has a factual foundation based on the complaint before the Tribunal;
The ground does not create a new complaint or cause of action which does not fall within the substance or scope of the complaint which has been referred for adjudication; and
Adding the ground does not unduly prejudice the respondent.
[7] These considerations are not four separate hurdles to be met in order to support an amendment. Rather, the Tribunal’s decision to grant an amendment arises from a balancing of all of the above factors, taking a broad and purposive approach, and is ultimately based upon fairness […]
The Tribunal decided to allow the amendment by adding the daughter as an additional complainant in the complaint, reasoning that: (1) the application was made at the earliest opportunity, since the complainant did not realize the Director did not consider her daughter to be a complainant until the decision to dismiss her complaint, (2) the Tribunal had previously found that the central allegation is that she and her children were denied access to services as a result of her disabilities, (3) the complaint and supporting materials refer to accommodation requests for herself and her daughter, adverse impacts on her daughter, etc., (4) to the extent adding the daughter made a new “complaint”, the substance of that complaint was in the existing complaint, and (5) the respondent had not asserted prejudice to itself, and no hearing date had yet been set.
My Take
The result here may seem obvious, but it is fairly significant when viewed in the context of other Alberta Human Rights rules.
Alberta Human Rights complaints are subject to very strict limitations timelines, where complaints must be filed within 1 year of the alleged discriminatory event. Those timelines are not generally discretionary, even if there was a reasonable excuse for why a complaint was filed late.
The Tribunal’s discretion to add a complainant to a complaint well after that ordinary 1 year limitation period has expired seems based in fairness, but also seems at odds with the reasoning in the cases which have found there is almost no discretion to file a complaint after 1 year at first instance. Those 1 year cases generally hold that the strict 1 year rule is necessary for certainty in human rights, and that 1 year starts from when an alleged discriminatory act occurs, not from when you first become or ought to have become aware of the facts underpinning that complaint.
Bow River Law provides these regular legal blog articles for the purposes of legal news, education and research for the public and the legal profession. These articles should be considered general information and not legal advice. If you have a legal problem, you should speak to a lawyer directly.
Bow River Law is a team of knowledgeable, skilled and experienced employment lawyers handling employment law, human rights (discrimination) and labour law matters. Bow River Law is based in Calgary but we are Alberta’s Workforce Lawyers.