Trinity Western University Decisions and Engineers’ Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Obligations Under the Statutory Public Interest Mandate

Authors

Michelle Liu, Univserity of Ottawa, Faculty of Engineering and the Centre for Law, Technology and Society
Vanessa Matta, University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law

Keywords

2SLGBTQ+, EDI, Trinity Western University, 2018 SCC 33, admission processes, professional duty, access to the profession, engineering

Abstract

Engineers create technologies but do not sufficiently care for their biased and inequitable outcomes despite the engineering profession’s statutory mandate to protect the public interest. The engineering and legal professions’ similar admission processes and statutory provisions mandating the protection of public interest may justify applying the Supreme Court of Canada’s interpretation of the legal profession’s public interest mandate in the Trinity Western University decisions to the engineering profession. The Supreme Court’s interpretation centres on equal access to the profession, diversity within its membership, and protection of 2SLGBTQ+ persons. The work begins by setting out the definitions and challenges of equity, diversity, and inclusion (‘‘EDI”) and an overview of the Trinity Western University decisions. A comparison follows of the two professions’ attention to 2SLGBTQ+ issues to reveal the relative EDI progress of each profession and substantiate engineering’s need to adopt the Supreme Court’s EDI-centred interpretation of the public interest mandate. The work then compares the admission processes of the two professions and the provisions setting out each profession’s duty to protect the public interest to demonstrate their similarity and, therefore, transferability of the EDI-centred interpretation. The work concludes that the Supreme Court’s interpretation could apply to the engineering profession and impose on engineers an obligation to uphold EDI principles, including inattending to the potentially biased and inequitable outcomes of their technological creations.

Recommended Citation

Michelle Liu and Vanessa Matta, "Trinity Western University Decisions and Engineers’ Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Obligations Under the Statutory Public Interest Mandate" (2024) 21:2 CJLT 173.