Absenteeism policies	workplace guidelines that outline vacations, leaves and acceptable reasons why an employee might be late for or miss work.
Barrier	anything that prevents a person from fully taking part in all aspects of society. There are many types of barriers – some examples are physical structures, poverty or lack of access to computers.
Common law	the part of Canadian law that from judicial precedent established through court decisions rather than statutes or legislation.
Disproportionate impacts	situations where one group is more negatively affected than another by a particular law, policy, or practice.
Duty bearer	persons or organizations with particular obligations or responsibility to respect, uphold and obey human rights laws. For example, under the B.C. Human Rights Code, duty bearers include employers, landlords and service providers.
Duty to accommodate	When rules, policies, practices, physical space and systems have a negative impact on an individual or group protected under the B.C. Human Rights Code they could be seen as discriminatory. Persons or organizations are responsible to modify (duty to accommodate) these rules, practices, systems, etc. unless it would create undue hardship to do so.  Protected grounds under the B.C. Human Rights Code can be found here.
Economic inequalities	situation where living conditions between different groups in society are vastly different. It means that there is an unequal distribution of social and economic benefits including income, housing and access to food. It is often associated with classism.
Evidence-based	information that is gathered from research conducted with review by fellow scientists or specialists (peer-review), clear and stated methods, evaluation and repeated studies that give the same outcome.
Human rights	Human Rights	universal rights based on simply being human for example, the right to equality.
	Civil Liberties	Rights and freedoms of individuals that protect them against the actions of the state or country for example, freedom of association.
	B.C. Human Rights Code	provincial legislation that identifies, prohibits and remedies discriminatory treatment. The discrimination is limited to areas such as employment, the provision of services, and tenancy.
	Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms	the part of the Canadian constitution that outlines the rights of all people in Canada.
	International Human Rights Treaties	agreements amongst countries that define and uphold universal human rights.
Immuno-compromised people	refers to people whose natural disease-fighting system (immune system) has been interrupted, disrupted or damaged. Immuno-compromised people are more likely to catch contagious illnesses and have limited capacity to fight even common diseases.
Pandemic	A pandemic is the worldwide spread of a disease. The World Health Organization labelled COVID-19 a pandemic on 11 March 2020.
Social distance and self-isolation	in the case of COVID-19, social distancing is a process that suggests safe limits for the amount of space between people in public areas. Self-isolation is the voluntary act of limiting the amount of time spent in public spaces.  This is a tool that can be used to minimize the spread of diseases.
Undue hardship	depends on the circumstances of each case but may be found to occur if, for example, the accommodation would create health and safety risks for others or would be overly expensive.