The facade of the headquarters of the Department of National Defence is pictured in Ottawa. The Canadian Press/Adrian Wyld
A federal judge has dismissed a class action lawsuit alleging systemic racism against civilian employees in the Department of National Defence (DND) and Canadian Armed Forces (CAF).
The suit, brought by Karen Lightbody and Rama Narsing on behalf of all racial minority civilian employees of the DND and CAF, was thrown out by Federal Court Justice Panagiotis Pamel, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.
The plaintiffs’ claims of being passed over for promotion and mistreated due to race were more appropriate to be brought before a labour board as individual employment disputes rather than as the basis of a class action lawsuit aiming to prove systemic racism before the court, according to Pamel’s Aug. 28 decision.
The case was brought forward in 2021 under section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which holds that every person is equal under the law without discrimination for any aspect of sex, race, colour, religion, age, national or ethnic origin, or mental or physical disability.
Narsing and Lightbody argued that the DND and CAF framework for dealing with discrimination against civilian employees was not sufficient to resolve ongoing systemic racism, necessitating the lawsuit. Lightbody began working for DND as a custodian, moving up to kitchen work and later working in computer systems, while Narsing worked in administration. According to their claims, they had been regularly denied promotions and subjected to racial slurs in their work roles.
Lightbody alleged she had suffered from “the stress of ‘being around racist colleagues, managers, and leaders at the DND” on an ongoing basis during her career spanning more than three decades, while Narsing alleged she was repeatedly overlooked for promotions, barred from other career opportunities, and forced to endure racial slurs, unequal treatment, and persistent discrimination as a woman of colour for her 14-year career with DND.
The plaintiffs attempted to bring forward a 2023 Senate Committee Report entitled “Anti-Black Racism, Sexism and Systemic Discrimination in the Canadian Human Rights Commission” to argue that systemic racism exists and Canada’s human rights tribunal is insufficient to resolve it.
The attorney general of Canada moved to strike the whole claim, saying statutory criteria had not been met and the allegations of systemic racism were overly broad and pertained to a variety of distinct work environments without being able to draw broad conclusions about the presence of systemic racism.
In his decision, Justice Pamel agreed with the attorney general, saying that since 2005, Canada’s Federal Public Sector Labour Relations Act (FPSLRA) puts racism and sexism work matters squarely in the domain of employment disputes.
Pamel said that the reports and anecdotal testimony brought forward by plaintiffs were not sufficient to provide evidence for the suit, and while he said that racial discrimination is and has been a serious problem in Canada, the appropriate means for dealing with such matters in the workplace already exists via the FPSLRA.
Pamel’s ruling comes in the wake of the Federal Court’s dismissal of a similar case in the $2.5 billion class action lawsuit Thompson v. Canada in which plaintiffs argued there had been systemic discrimination against thousands of black individuals from 1970 to 2025 who had “applied for work or worked for the federal government as part of the public service, and were denied hiring or promotional opportunities by virtue of their race.”
In the Thompson case, Justice Jocelyn Gagné rejected the claim, saying that the case would have required reaching an overly broad conclusion based on sifting through tens of thousands of individual hiring decisions and work experiences.
“The evidence that racial discrimination tainted one staffing decision will not prove anything for any other Plaintiff or putative class member,” Gagné wrote, adding that since self-identification was voluntary in applications, “it is impossible to measure the true response rate or the true representation of the designated group in the workforce, particularly when looking at historical periods.”
