Equal Leave, Unequal Impact

 

“Everyone gets the same benefit” sounds like the definition of fairness until you look at who gets squeezed when the rules change. We start with a Surrey teachers’ parental leave top-up dispute that has taken a surprising turn: adoptive parents argue that equal top-up pay can still be discriminatory because adoption can bring immediate, higher support needs for children, including trauma histories, disability, or fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. We unpack how the policy evolved from older, birth-mother-only benefits, through earlier discrimination findings, and into a negotiated model where all new parents receive the same top-up. Then we dig into the key legal question now headed to the Human Rights Tribunal: can identical treatment create disproportionate harm that human rights law must address?

Next, we shift to criminal law and the rare reality of perjury charges. Michael Mulligan explains a case where a man, acquitted of manslaughter after a fatal one-punch incident, later pleaded guilty to perjury for lying under oath about whether his relationship had ended. We break down why courts treat perjury as so serious, how sentencing is assessed, and why the BC Court of Appeal upheld a 20-month jail term even where the lie might feel “peripheral.”

We close with consumer protection and the Competition Act concept of drip pricing, using the Honk Mobile parking app class action as a real-world example. Nearly a million people are part of the settlement, with an average claim around 35 cents, raising practical questions about notice, redemption by promo code, and whether small-dollar justice actually reaches consumers.

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Legally Speaking with Michael Mulligan is live on CFAX 1070 every Thursday at 12:30 p.m. It’s also available on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

 

Legally Speaking Aug 13 2026

Adam Stirling [00:00:00] This is time for our regular segment, joined as always by Barrister and Solicitor with Mulligan Defence Lawyers, Michael Mulligan. It’s Legally Speaking on CFAX 1070, afternoon Michael, how are we doing?

Michael T. Mulligan [00:00:10] Hey, good afternoon, I’m doing great.

Adam Stirling [00:00:12] Some interesting items on the agenda for this week, I am reading here, it says a human rights claim by teachers with nine children alleging discrimination based on, does that say adoptive versus birth parents to proceed? What’s happening here?

Michael T. Mulligan [00:00:24] Well, I guess one way to sum it up would be sort of the toothpaste tube getting squeezed around in different places in terms of top-ups paid to different kinds of parents when they have a new child. And the particular background of this case is a claim brought by two teachers who are employed apparently for a long period of time in the Surrey School District. And they had a big family, lots of children, in total, in this case involved the adoption of their ninth child, so wow, that’s a busy household. And the underlying issue here is one involving who should be entitled to a financial top-up that would be available to you to supplement the amount of money you might be getting from the government when you’re going on leave when you are either having a child or adopting a child. And the case actually, the origin of how this thing came to be, dates all the way back to 2012 when there was a complaint brought by a father, actually back to 1998, even earlier, 1998.

Adam Stirling [00:01:43] mm hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:01:43] And it was a claim brought at that time by a birth father who made a complaint about being discriminated against on the basis that mothers would get this top-up when they were taking leave after the birth of a child, but fathers would not. And that was found to be discriminatory, and it led to some changes, including changes to the, eventually the collective agreement for the teachers in the Surrey School District. And so they extended benefits to other groups other than mothers who gave birth to children to include fathers and adopted parents, all fine as far as it went. But the benefits that were being provided were benefits that really were a function of the terms of the collective agreement between the teachers and their employer. The issue that then arose was the fact that there were different categories of benefits you could get. There were benefits that would be provided to birth mothers, like you would get some time off while pregnant or giving birth, and then there would be this additional time that would provide if you were an adoptive parent or a father, for example, taking time off. These parents, the particular ones who brought the claim, had made, had taken benefit from this top-up as a result of the number of children they had, had given birth to or adopted over the years. And eventually there came a complaint about the fairness of having different amounts of Leave available when somebody was a father or an adoptive parent versus a mother who was having the child and then taking time off. And the decision about that wound up being that it was not fair to have different amounts of time provided to people in those different categories. That conclusion wound up going all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada, who eventually sent it back to be dealt with as a matter of negotiation between the teachers and their employer. And the outcome of that was to give everyone the same amount of top-up, regardless of whether you were an adoptive parent or you were a mother giving birth or you’re a father. Everyone would get the same. And that decision eventually got implemented. When this Couple Had adopted their ninth child. And to their surprise, they found they wound up getting less of a top up basically what happened is that everyone got entitlement to the same thing but less. That’s what I mean by the toothpaste tube there’s only so much I guess money to be negotiated and spread around and so when the decision came that everyone should get the same It had been for some people they got less. And so the particular challenge brought in this case is a challenge brought by these parents in the context of having adopted a child and the complaint is that they are now being discriminated against because there are particular challenges associated with being an adoptive parent. And so they pointed to the fact that, and there’s some evidentiary basis for that. Many children who are adopted have, and particularly children that are adopted perhaps not at birth, can have a number of challenges. There’s like a higher rate of, for example, children who were adopted having to have fetal alcohol syndrome or might have experienced some abuse in their early days before they’re winded up being adopted. And so the claim from the parents here is premised on the idea that it amounts to being discriminatory against adoptive parents by treating them the same as parents who are not adopting. And so that unique claim took the form of a human rights complaint saying treating us all the same, that is to say adoptive parent treating us the same way as parents who are Not adopting is itself discriminatory. And so the unique argument is that the argument is, treating everyone the same is discriminatory.

Adam Stirling [00:06:25] hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:06:25] There should be additional time Provided in this case, they’re arguing for adoptive parents and they frame that human rights complaint in various different ways and the human rights tribunal summarily dismissed Several parts of how that claim was articulated, but allowed it to proceed on one of the grounds, which was the basis that I just indicated, that there was a disproportionate harm to adoptive parents by giving them effectively the same amount as what other people would get. The Schoolboard, the Surrey School District, appealed the decision to allow even that part of the claim to go ahead, arguing this really isn’t a human right, proper human rights complaint, arguing, well, everyone’s just being treated the same. How can that possibly be discriminatory? And so that’s the decision that just went to the B.C. Supreme Court. Which has just decided that it is not as clear as all that that there is an at least an arguable claim to be made that treating everyone the same way could itself be discriminatory. They haven’t decided that so.

Adam Stirling [00:07:40] hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:07:41] But they agreed that it was appropriate to allow that to go to a human rights tribunal hearing and so that’s what’s now going to occur And so we’ve moved from a circumstance where a number of years ago adoptive parents and fathers would get no top-up at all to a circumstance in which everyone in all these categories is receiving effectively the same thing, but the argument now is that that itself is discriminatory because of the particular needs of adoptive parents. And so on that, very interesting fact pattern. The judge has directed that that shouldn’t simply be struck out as having no chance of success. And so we will now go back and await the decision from the Human Rights Commission to determine, or Tribunal, to determine whether it is in fact discriminatory to treat everyone, all these kinds of new parents, the same way.

Adam Stirling [00:08:36] Michael Mulligan with Mulligan Defence Lawyers, Legally Speaking will continue right after this.

[00:08:40] COMMERCIAL.

[00:08:40] All right, back on the air here at CFAX 1070, Legally speaking continues, Michael Mulligan, Barrister and Solicitor with Mulligan Defence Lawyer. Michael, up next in our agenda, it says a 20-month jail sentence for perjury in a manslaughter trial upheld on appeal. What happened?

Michael T. Mulligan [00:08:56] Well, this case involved, as he’s mentioned, a perjury charge, which I should say at the outset are rare. It is not rare in criminal cases to, by the end of the trial, have a conclusion that some of the witnesses were not truthful, but it is rare that they actually be a charge of perjury. Now, the background of this case is interesting. This was a fellow who, back in 2019, had a trial he was himself charged with manslaughter, and it was one of these cases involving a punch of a person outside a nightclub, in this case in Kamloops, and the person punched died.

Adam Stirling [00:09:36] Yes.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:09:36] And that does happen from time to time. He was charged and at his trial he chose to testify. And he testified at his trials, a jury trial, that he was acting in defence of his then girlfriend when he struck the person who died. The jury obviously accepted that or at least had a reasonable doubt about it because they acquitted him ultimately of the manslaughter charge. But the evidence in question arose in cross-examination when Crown Counsel was asking him about his relationship with the then girlfriend whom he said he was acting in defence of and he claimed for reasons unexplained that his relationship with her had ended shortly after this event when the truth of the matter was that it had not ended and that he continued to have contact with her by telephone and including physical and other contact with her. And so it’s on that basis that he was charged with perjury in 2026, alleging that he lied when he said the relationship was over in cross-examination. He interestingly pled guilty to that charge, which I should just a small diversion. One of the reasons why perjury charges may not be that common is that the Crown would then have to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that the person was intentionally lying when they testified about something. But in this case, apparently the guy had made comments about that in other contexts and so the Crown thought they had a basis to do it, charged him and he pled guilty. The judge then, sentencing him on the perjury charge, took into account a number of factors in a case called Jordan, it’s an Alberta Court of Appeals decision, that sets out things a judge had to think about when deciding how serious perjury is, because as you might imagine, there’s a range of these things.

Adam Stirling [00:11:29] hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:11:29] They include these things, how serious was the offence the person was perjuring themselves about? You know, is this a speeding ticket or a murder charge, right? How serious is the offence? Did the perjury have an effect on the outcome of the trial? That’s of course hard to know in a jury case because you don’t ever get reasons from the jury, right? And it’s not a case where it was sort of perjury about something directly related to it, it’s sort of a peripheral element here, so that’s a consideration. Whether the testimony formed a vital part of the evidence, that’s sort tied up in that last thing, the effect. Another consideration is whether the perjury implicated an innocent person in a crime. That’s considered to be more serious. If you lie and claim somebody else did something. You know, maybe trying to get them convicted, for example, that can be an aggravating factor. And then finally, whether the perjury was planned and deliberate, sort of similar language to first-degree murder, like, have you planned this all out or just going to happen on the quick? Here, the judge found, amongst other things, that this must have been aggravating because he said these various things repeatedly. They were brief, but repeated various claims in his cross-examination about having this relationship having ended. And the judge sentencing on the perjury charge gave this man 20 months in prison, perhaps not that far off of where he might’ve landed had he been convicted of some, you know, one punch assault that landed in a tragic death. So he gets 20 months and he appeals that to the Court of Appeal. And so the decision that just came out, just a few days ago was the BC Court of Appeal that ultimately upheld the 20-month jail sentence. Bearing in mind those list of various factors that are to be considered and bearing in mind the broad principle when there’s a sentence appeal it’s not a matter of the Court of Appeal doing whatever they think they might have imposed but it’s really an assessment as to whether the what’s the sentence what the Sentenced imposed was that sort of outside the range was really completely inappropriate sentence rather than one that they might necessarily have come to the same conclusion about. And so the Court of Appeal on that sort of deferential basis upheld this 20-month sentence. And so I thought it was a case worth commenting on both because perjury charges are not common and to give listeners a sense of just how seriously the justice system treats those things when they are able to prove them. I must say in that regard, I’ve been doing what I do a very long time. All I do is criminal defence work.

Adam Stirling [00:13:59] hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:13:59] And, you know, there have been over the years, uh multiple circumstances where judges have made determinations that, for example, a complainant is telling an untrue story. I can think of no examples where the Crown in response to that has charged a complainant with perjury. And so It’s interesting that on this this sort of perhaps sort of peripheral detail about the nature of the relationship, after the event occurred, that they saw fit to charge this person who that ultimately pled guilty. But it gives you an idea of just how seriously the criminal justice system does take it. When there’s a conviction of that kind because of course people coming to court and lying Can  seriously Impact  how things play out so i guess the takeaway there is, tell the truth. Even on peripheral things, if you don’t, the consequences like for this man  it can be very very serious.

Adam Stirling [00:14:57] All right, I’m reading here. It says settlement of claim against something called Honk Mobile for adding service fees not disclosed in the initial price approved. What’s all this about?

Michael T. Mulligan [00:15:07] So this is really interesting. So Honk Mobile is like a mobile platform that apparently you can use to pay for parking, amongst other things. And it apparently is relatively popular because part of the, one of the stats here was that there were some 992,400 class members, like people who had used this thing over a period of time to pay for parking. And the class action was premised on what was alleged to have been a breach of some of the provisions of the Competition Act, which is federal legislation in Canada. And the Competition Act, one of the things it does is it prohibits false and misleading like advertising. And one of things which it expressly prohibits is a concept called drip pricing, which listeners should become aware of, and it says this, for greater certainty, the making of a representation of a price that is not attainable due to a fixed obligatory charges or fees constitutes a false or misleading representation. Unless the obligation, obligatory, charges or fees represent only an amount imposed on the purchaser of the product by operation of under section of an act of parliament or legislature for province. The last bit are taxes, by the way, right? If somebody advertises a price but doesn’t say plus GST or something, you wouldn’t be in breach of this provision. But what it would prohibit about are things like, let’s say, a hotel advertises nights for $199. You’re great, I’ll take it. You show up there, you book it, and then they say, by the way, there’s a resort fee.

Adam Stirling [00:16:47] hmm.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:16:48] That wasn’t in the advertising. You must pay $25 as a resort fee. That could amount to drip-bracing and be unlawful under the Competition Act. So bringing us to this particular case, this Honk Mobile app allows you to pay for stuff like parking. And when you start paying for parking, what happened is there was a fee added in which you could not possibly get out of in order to pay for parking. And so the claim was premised on, hey, you misled all these people with how much parking cost in violation of the Competition Act, and that was the basis for the class action claim, which got certified. And the claim then, as I mentioned, involved a lot of people, almost a million people in Canada. Now, this I suppose on one level is an example of why it’s a good thing we have class action litigation, because the amount that people may have been out was just like a matter of, I think 35 cents on average, not much. And very few people are going to sue over, you know, 35 cents. But the lawyers who took this thing on took it on and then engaged in the arbitration process and eventually were able to get a settlement out of Honk Mobile. And they got Honk Mobile to agree to the settlement of it was a total of $463,000 minus things like some of the legal expenses and an honorarium and so on for the representative plaintiff. And that led to this having to go for approval of a judge to approve this settlement. You might be one of a million people and when you settle a class action, a judge has to review it to make sure that it’s Fair and reasonable  because it affects all these people. And this case had a number of interesting bits about it. One was the large number of people involved another interesting thing was that they were quite readily able to notify them all of the claim and ultimately the settlement proposal because of the online nature of this service. And so the company, Honk Mobile, had email addresses for people. And so they were able to email 90% of the people involved. Now, another interesting stat, I mean, this tells you how much people pay attention to their email. Less than 15% of people that were notified by email opened the email to look at it. But nonetheless, that’s okay. You don’t need to succeed in notifying absolutely everyone. There’s no way to force everyone to read their email about a potential settlement. But that was pretty good and of that large number interestingly This is part of the settlement process people can choose to opt out like, to say no I want to be able to sue myself, ninety two people opted out which a bit of a head scratcher I’m not sure how many people are starting their own small claims action over thirty five cents but there we are. Two people objected to it, which is another thing that’s permissible, one person objected that this wasn’t a sufficient penalty for breaking the law. That didn’t get much traction because the civil claims over money not punishing people. The other person who complained about it had a thoughtful comment. Because of how these rebates were going to be sent out, what’s going to happen is that the Honk people are going to send out promo codes, individual codes which people can type in to get for 35 cents. But if they don’t type them in and use them by, I think, January, it just, that’s over, they don’t get the 35 cents. And so the second objection was thoughtful, saying, well, hold on, why didn’t you just like add this to their account, because many people aren’t going to go through the process, only 15% of people even open their email for heaven’s sakes, how many people are really going to claim their 35 cents.

Adam Stirling [00:20:30] Yeah.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:20:30] The judge pointed out that that’s reasonable, but the company says their infrastructure, the app doesn’t allow for that, and the task of a judge isn’t to figure out what the best possible settlement could have been or to monkey around with it, is to determine whether what was resolved here was reasonable in all the circumstances. And on that threshold, the judge agreed. Yes, it was. And so if you happen to use Honk Mobile, he may want to go to your junk file, open it up and get your code. If that effort is worth the 35 cents and we’ll have to wait and see what the other 92 people do, whether they’re trying to get more out of honk, mobile for the drip pricing claim. So that’s the Competition Act, drip pricing, and the latest approval of a settlement for people that paid too much for parking.

Adam Stirling [00:21:15] Michael Mulligan with Mulligan Defence Lawyers, Legally Speaking, during the second half of our second hour every Thursday. Thank you so much. Pleasure as always.

Michael T. Mulligan [00:21:22] Thanks so much! Always great to be here.

Adam Stirling [00:21:24] Quick break. Back after this.

Automatically Transcribed on September 8, 2026 – MULLIGAN DEFENCE LAWYERS