A Quebec Human Rights Tribunal judge has dismissed a complaint against a bird conservation group whose federally funded job posting was open only to applicants aged 30 or under who identify as Indigenous, black or a person of colour.
Judge Magali Lewis ruled that the posting was discriminatory on its face, but that it was not discriminatory under Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms because it came from a government “ameliorative” program. She also ruled that the complainant, Stéphanie Salagan, never really intended to apply and had no standing to sue. The decision, 2026 QCTDP 7, was issued March 12, 2026.
In October 2021, Regroupement QuébecOiseaux advertised a 20-week, part-time project officer job promoting Nature Canada’s “Bird Friendly City” certification. The job paid $17.50 an hour for 28 hours a week. The ad said that, because the funding program aimed to promote diversity, the position was open only to people 30 and under who identify as Indigenous, black or people of colour.
(Quotes from the decision are translated from French.)
According to the decision, QuébecOiseaux had 12 employees at the time: 11 white women and one biologist of South American origin.
The money came through a chain of federal programs. Employment and Social Development Canada runs the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy. Under it, Parks Canada signed a contribution agreement with Nature Canada in June 2021. Nature Canada then launched a wage subsidy program called Work to Grow and encouraged QuébecOiseaux to apply.
The approval email from Nature Canada dictated the sentence restricting the job by race. The tribunal found that the age limit came from the Parks Canada agreement.
Nature Canada executive director Emily McMillan testified that the decision rested partly on her own observation over 30 years that audiences at environmental conferences are often entirely white, and partly on a study Nature Canada sponsored.
The program hired 351 young people, according to Nature Canada’s final report. Of those, 81 were Indigenous and 214 were black or people of colour, which leaves 56 who were neither.
McMillan testified that Nature Canada sometimes waived the eligibility criteria when employers told it they weren’t getting applications from youth facing barriers. Nature Canada removed the race requirement from the program in June 2023. McMillan testified that the change was a response to Salagan’s complaint, made to avoid similar lawsuits.
Salagan filed her complaint with Quebec’s human rights commission in October 2021, alleging discrimination based on age, race, colour and ethnic origin. The commission sided with her.
It found the ad violated the Charter and proposed that QuébecOiseaux pay her $4,000. It then declined to take the case to the tribunal itself, saying it did not raise public interest concerns, and authorized Salagan to sue on her own. She represented herself and sought $7,500.
Most of the decision deals with whether Salagan really wanted the job.
To answer that, the tribunal examined her university transcript, internship agreement, invoices, T4 slip and student financial aid application. It found that in fall 2021 she was a full-time law student at UQAM with a one-day-a-week internship, and that she was president of an animal rights committee. She was also teaching green-wall construction at a Laval horticulture centre at $80 an hour, which the tribunal noted is more than four and a half times what QuébecOiseaux was offering.
It concluded that “all of these elements make it implausible that she really wanted to apply.”
