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ILLUSTRATION BY PAUL TWA
Mary Gadowsky
1936: Started 41-year career as a classroom teacher
1977: Fought mandatory retirement in court and won
Case set a precedent that is still cited today
BY SEPTEMBER 1977, Mary Gadowsky had served 41 years in Alberta classrooms. Her employer, the School Committee of the County of Two Hills, was short on cash and wanted to reduce the teacher count at Myrnam School by one. According to court documents, the county believed the 62-year-old Gadowsky “had the necessary years of service for retirement” and that her doing so would “solve their problem very neatly.” The campaign to nudge her into retirement was on.
The board presented a list of retirement options to Gadowsky, who made it clear that she was not prepared to retire, preferring to teach until age 65. In order to keep teaching, Gadowsky accepted a transfer from elementary to junior high. On July 2, 1977, the school presented Gadowsky with her course assignments for the upcoming school year: three courses in social studies, economics, geography, art, social problems and physical education.
Knowing it was impossible to prepare for so many new courses in eight weeks, Gadowsky recognized that the board’s campaign had succeeded. She delivered her retirement letter on July 4, and soon felt that “because of her forced retirement she had lost status and was cut off from the community and that she was left with no goal in life.”
But Gadowsky rallied her spirits and decided to fight. In August 1977 she complained to the Human Rights Commission alleging that the pressure she was under to retire due to her age was in contravention of the Individual’s Rights Protection Act.
The ensuing investigation took two years.
In 1980, the matter came before the Court of Queen’s Bench, which concluded that declining enrolment and funding cuts did not justify the county’s violating Gadowsky’s human rights.
“There is no question in my mind,” wrote Justice Allan Cawsey, “that Mrs. Gadowsky’s age was either the main reason or incidental to it, and that the actions of the County offended the dignity and equality of Mrs. Gadowsky and these actions were discrimination against Mrs. Gadowsky because of her age.”
On Sept. 17, 1980, the court awarded Gadowsky costs and a total compensation of $72,518.38 in lost salary.
Gadowsky’s courage and demand for self-determination set an important precedent throughout Canada. The case has been cited often in the ensuing decades, most recently in a 2020 Alberta Human Rights Commission case (Connolly v SNC-Lavalin Operations).
Gadowsky died in 2014 at the age of 99.
Reference
Gadowsky v. School Committee of the County of Two Hills, 1980 CanLII 1107 (AB QB).
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