Management Counsel Employment and Labour Law Update February 2017 Vol XVI No.7
Stay Out of My Genes! - Bill S-201 Seeks to Prohibit Genetic Discrimination
Disability management is among the most challenging employer responsibilities. Many questions must be answered including: Does the employee have a disability? To what extent? How does the disability impact the employee’s ability to do his or her job? What, if any, are the restrictions? What is the prospect for recovery – in whole or in part? Then, of course, there is the issue of obtaining useful and timely information from the employee’s medical practitioner. Sometimes, this is straight-forward. Other times, it’s anything but.
What if there was a way to achieve certainty about the existence of a medical condition? Even plan ahead to accommodate an employee’s future medical restrictions? Advances in genetic testing mean this may be a possibility. But at what cost? Genetic information, while it may be interesting or even beneficial to an individual curious about his or her genetic makeup, if accessed by a third party can have unintended and potentially negative consequences.
Genetic Information - A Window Into The Future
We’ve seen the television ads: pay a fee, mail a saliva sample to a private laboratory and receive a detailed report about inherited conditions, health risks, drug responsiveness and other genetic characteristics.
What if this sensitive, personal information could be accessed by an insurance company to assess the risk associated with extending or denying coverage to an individual and their relatives who may be impacted? Similarly, what if this same information could be accessed by a potential employer to make employment-related decisions based on the risk of a future disability claim or workplace restriction?
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