you are being asked to develop and analyze a “Pop Can Scenario.” The analogy is that of a pop can in the middle of a table: You can have a
number of people sitting at the table around looking at the same pop can – and everyone will recognize it as a pop can – but each person
may notice different things about it. For example, one person may look at the name of the soda first; someone else may look at the logo;
another person may focus on the ingredients written in English, while someone else may see the French. Yet another person may immediately
look to the nutritional value. The principle is that people with different perspectives and experiences often view the same objects (or
events) differently.
Justice issues can be similar to the pop can analogy. In this assignment you will be asked to create a scenario with potential legal or
administrative repercussions and then you will need to identify the various perspectives and appropriate agencies, courts or other bodies
that could be used as methods deal with the issue.
Here’s a condensed example of the exercise… Following is ONLY AN EXAMPLE. DO NOT USE EXACT SCENARIO.
The scenario:
A federally regulated airline had one of its planes deadheading back from a trip over a great distance. During the trip, a woman on the
crew who had been working for the past 14 hours fell asleep on duty. When she awoke everything appeared normal and the flight ended without
incident.
Several days later, when the crew member returned for her next set of flights, she walked past the maintenance crew’s lockers and was
aghast to see a picture of herself in one of the lockers. It was apparently taken on the previous flight and the photo was of a clearly
identifiable male crew member who appeared to be touching her and gesturing in a sexual manner. Although the woman knew it was supposed to
be a joke, she was horrified and felt very uncomfortable returning to work.
The analysis
Justice issues can be similar to the “pop can analogy”. Referring back to the airline scenario, if we put a number of practitioners around
a table they would all see this incident as inappropriate sexual behaviour; however, like the pop can analogy, they would see things from
different perspectives: the police officer and the crown prosecutor could see a criminal offence; the civil litigator would see the
potential for liability and a civil suit; a human rights worker would see sexual discrimination in the workplace; a union steward would see
a grievance; a human resources officer would see the potential for progressive discipline; an ombudsman may try to mediate the complaint; a
Canada Labour Code officer would want to see if there was undue fatigue on the crew brought on by excessive flying; the Canadian
Transportation Agency may investigate the licensing of the carrier; and airline management would want internal security to do an
investigation and risk analysis.
Assignment:
Part 1: Develop a short fact pattern or “story”. This should be the shortest part of the assignment, and should not be more than one or two
paragraphs. That being said, your fact pattern needs to be complex enough that you will be able to develop the perspective of each of your
different practitioners. Refer back to the scenario above for an example for this assignment.
Note: You will be using this “story” on which to base your assignment.
Part 2: Identify the various perspectives and six appropriate agencies, courts or other bodies that could be used as methods of resolving
the issue. Describe the potential actions the people involved could take and where they would be taken. You will do this by setting out, in
one paragraph per agency, a summary of why each agency is an appropriate venue to resolve the issue and what aspect of the issue each would
address. You will also be expected to provide specific references to the agencies and provide accurate contact information on how to access
them. For example, the Canadian Human Rights Commission is a possible agency in the airline scenario (because they have jurisdiction over
federal transportation). You would then need to include contact information for the CHRC.
The expectation is that you will be able to identify 6 options/agencies for remedies for your fact pattern. All citations must meet APA
criteria.
Justice Education Society’s AdminLawBC.ca (http://www.adminlawbc.ca/) has a directory of administrative tribunals and agencies. This might
be a very useful site to visit as you begin to think about creating your scenarios for the pop can assignment and determining what
tribunals and agencies are potentially appropriate venues for resolution of some aspect of your scenario.