Imperial Oil has been ordered to pay a former international student more than $116,000 in lost salary and damages, four years after it rescinded a job offer after learning he was not a permanent resident of Canada at the time.

Although the company had argued that Muhammad Haseeb was dishonest about his immigration status throughout the job application process, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario ruled he was entitled to claim lost income over the four-year period his case was being adjudicated.

“My intent in this decision is not to excuse or condone dishonesty, or to suggest that an employer cannot terminate a person’s employment or refuse to hire a person due to dishonesty,” tribunal adjudicator Mark Hart wrote in his decision.

“Rather, this decision is restricted to a person’s dishonesty solely in response to questions asked during the hiring process that are themselves found to be in violation of the (human rights) code.”

The decision on compensation came more than a year after the tribunal found in a precedent-setting ruling that the oil giant was guilty of discriminating against the McGill University engineering graduate based on citizenship.

The company, which employs thousands of people, has since changed its policy and no longer requires job candidates to provide proof of eligibility to work in Canada on a permanent basis.

According to the complaint filed in 2015, Haseeb came to Canada from Pakistan in 2009 for his undergraduate studies in mechanical engineering and received top marks when he graduated in December 2014. That fall, he applied to Imperial Oil and was invited to two rounds of interviews.

He was ranked first among all candidates and received a job offer Dec. 2, 2014 for a $86,700 entry-level position in Sarnia. The offer was cancelled by Imperial Oil a month later after he failed to provide proof of his permanent residence status in Canada, though a postgraduate work permit did allow Haseeb to work legally in Canada for up to three years.

During the remedy hearing, the tribunal was told Haseeb had received three Canadian job offers, but decided to go with Imperial Oil because it was the only engineering job — the others were a business and systems integration job at Accenture and an analyst position at Deloitte.

After Imperial Oil cancelled the offer, Haseeb took the $50,000 Deloitte job so he could earn the Canadian job experience he needed to qualify for permanent residence. He became a permanent resident in June 2017.

Haseeb said what he was most pleased about with the tribunal resolution wasn’t the monetary compensation, but learning that Imperial Oil has since stopped requiring job candidates to provide proof of eligibility to work in Canada on a permanent basis. Now, the company only asks applicants if they can work legally in Canada and it accepts candidates with postgraduate work permits.

“I’m just happy that this has led to the change. That’s all I had hoped for,” he said in an exclusive interview with the Star.

“There are so many talented students who come here to study and I sincerely hope that Canada can put all these talents to work so they can contribute to the country,” said Haseeb, now 28, who just started a one-year Master’s degree program in September at York University in artificial intelligence management, an interest he developed while at Deloitte.

His lawyer, Jo-Ann Seamon, said she, too, was impressed by Imperial Oil’s self-initiated change to its hiring practice and hoped other employers become more aware of the changing immigration laws and the bigger talent pool available to them.

“It doesn’t only create more opportunity for these students to access good jobs, Canadian employers can also get to the best and brightest from our colleges and universities,” said Seamon, senior counsel of the Human Rights Legal Support Centre.

In its decision dated Aug. 23, the tribunal awarded Haseeb $101,363 in lost income that amounted to the wage difference between his job at Deloitte and what had been offered by Imperial Oil during the period between March 2015 and May 2019. There was a deduction for a 10-month leave that he took from Deloitte when he visited his family in Pakistan after getting his permanent residence status and during which he had no income.

Imperial Oil was also ordered to pay Haseeb an additional $15,000 compensation for “injury to dignity, feelings and self-respect,” as well as pre-judgment interest that amounted to almost $4,000.

Imperial Oil declined to comment on the ruling.

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Haseeb said he plans to donate some of the money to a charitable organization that helps people find meaningful employment and contribute some to the Human Rights Legal Support Centre that supported him throughout his battle. He said he’ll use the rest to help his parents in Pakistan build a house.

“The money really isn’t mine to keep,” said Haseeb. “I owe it all to my parents. They spent their entire life saving for my education. The little I have, I owe it to them.”

Imperial Oil has 30 days from the date of the decision to request reconsideration from the human rights tribunal. There is no time limit for seeking a judicial review at the Superior Court of Justice.

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