The "human right" to have manic episodes while testing artillery

The incomparable Margaret Wente has another report about the Ontario Human Rights Commission. This one is about a man called Paul Lane who lied on his job application -- he didn't disclose that he had a serious mental disorder when he applied for a high-stress position testing artillery software.

A couple of days after he started work, he asked his boss to monitor him for inappropriate behaviour, which he attributed to "emotional abuse" in previous jobs. Soon after that, he told her he had bipolar disorder and said he was susceptible to manic episodes that might require him to take as much as three months off work. Then he started having paranoid delusions and stopped functioning entirely.

Like all employees, Mr. Lane had been hired on 90 days' probation.

On Day 8, the firm decided to cut its losses and cordially told him it was letting him go. Given the nature of its work, there was no way to reassign him.

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The tribunal awarded Mr. Lane $34,278.75 in lost wages, $10,000 for "reckless infliction of mental anguish" and $35,000 for "violation of his inherent right to be free from discrimination." It also ruled that the company must hire a consultant to provide all employees with human-rights training. The HRC trumpeted the verdict as a "landmark" decision for the rights of the mentally disabled.

Personally, I wouldn't wish bipolar disorder on my worst enemy.

But rights slice both ways. Mr. Lane applied for a job for which he clearly wasn't suited, and misstated facts to get it. Now he stands to collect nearly $80,000, and he was only on the job for eight days.

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These bodies are fast losing their legitimacy. They have no one to blame but themselves.

Most of my comments these past two months -- and most of the media's recent criticism -- have focused on the commissions' ambitions to regulate speech and thought. But the strength of Wente's report, and hers last week too, was that she focuses on the main work of the commissions. Many of the critics of the commissions' adventures into censorship still think that these commissions have other, important work to do. Wente proves that's simply not true. Her reports of absurdities aren't anomalies, they're random samples, par for the course. Keith Martin's private member's bill to delete the thought crime provisions is a good start. But these commissions shouldn't just be pruned -- they should be pulled out by the roots.