MONTREAL - The job requirements are on par with what would be expected for any company looking for a webmaster, with one notable exception: smokers need not apply.
And a Quebec group that defends the rights of smokers is fuming over the job posting by an anti-smoking organization, calling it discriminatory.
Arminda Mota, president of mychoice.ca, a website dedicated to smokers' rights, says the advertisement that says the successful applicant must be either a non-smoker or an ex-smoker opens the doors to all sorts of discrimination by employers.
"They get at least $3 million a year from the government - from taxpayers who are non-smokers, and smokers like me and they are openly discriminating," Mota said Wednesday.
"Even if you're a non-smoker, can you agree with this? What's next? You're not able to apply if you're over 150 pounds?"
Mota said the Quebec Council on Tobacco and Health is essentially promoting discrimination using taxpayer dollars.
But council president Mario Bujold says his organization is well within its rights to hire a non-smoker given its mandate.
"We are a non-profit organization that does work to prevent smoking and that's why we ask our employees to be non-smokers or ex-smokers," said Bujold.
"We promote activities to reduce smoking so we want to set good examples."
Bujold said his organization employs a dozen people and some, including himself, are ex-smokers.
Bujold said the stipulation doesn't violate any charter rights.
Mota said the non-smoking requirement is rarely asked for by employers in Canada but is gaining steam in the United States.
"It's not the smoking issue itself - it's the fact that public health is starting to dictate behaviour and everyone thinks what they're doing is OK," said Mota.
"For now it's just smokers - but I don't want to live in a society where what I put in my body is dictated by government."
Mota said most of her employees in the past have been non-smokers and it has had no bearing on the work they do.
"What you do, it's none of my business as the employer," Mota said.
The Quebec Human Rights Commission says it hasn't yet dealt with a similar complaint and a spokesman says he isn't sure it would constitute discrimination because smoking isn't spelled out in the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Spokesman Robert Sylvestre said Sec. 10 of the charter forbids discrimination on the basis of a number of conditions from race and sex to political convictions and language.
But smoking is not one of them.
Sylvestre said some people in other provinces have attempted to argue that someone with alcohol and drug dependency is akin to being handicapped.
But no one has attempted that with smoking, Sylvestre said.
