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Seventy organizations demand law to end racial discrimination

Representatives of nearly 70 organizations, including several hundred men and women, will meet Premier Frost at Queen’s Park today to present a brief urging passage of legislation to deal with racial and religious discrimination.

Source: Toronto Daily Star, January 24, 1950

Professor urges legal action

“This prejudice, like all others, will break down only when the two groups take part in interaction. What is needed is a change in relationship, and to attain that, the laws can and must be used.”

Source: Professor Everett W. Bovard, University of Toronto, as quoted in the Globe and Mail, November 1, 1954

Start prosecution for discrimination

Steps to launch the first prosecution under Ontario’s anti-discrimination law were taken yesterday in the case of Morley McKay, Dresden café owner.

He is said to have refused service last Friday to a Toronto Negro, Bromley Armstrong.

… Next step will be the issuing of a summons against McKay, charging him with practicing racial discrimination.

Source: Globe and Mail, November 4, 1954

Won’t let legislation collapse, premier says of Dresden cases

… The Dresden people were convicted on charges of refusing to serve Negroes. When they appealed before Kent County Court of Appeal, the convictions were thrown out by Judge Henry Grosch.

Premier Frost described as ridiculous reports that the convictions had been put aside because neither restaurant keeper had told the Negroes they weren’t being served because of their color.

“Surely it isn’t necessary that a bank robber must announce that he is going to hold up a bank before he is convicted of bank robbery?” he remarked.

…”The fact that others were being served in the restaurants while the Negroes were being ignored should have indicated discrimination. It shouldn’t be necessary for a statement or a written notice telling them why they weren’t being served.”

Source: Globe and Mail, September 16, 1955

Beacon against bigotry

[T]he code will serve as a beacon; a warning against practising racial prejudice in this province, a statement of public policy on which sufferers from slurring discrimination can lean. It should, as Premier Robarts has said, “create a climate of understanding and mutual respect among our people.” As often as not, the problem is not communal bigotry, but communal apathy to bigotry. This code should help to reduce such apathy.

Source: Editorial, Toronto Daily Star, Friday, June 15, 1962

Law and prejudice

The Ontario Human Rights Code, which is now in effect, is another milestone in this Province’s fine record in the area of anti-discrimination laws. The new code consolidates the Fair Employment Practices Act, the Female Employees Fair Remuneration Act, the Fair Accommodation Practices Act and the Ontario Human Rights Commission Act. It combines education and enforcement under the administration of the Human Rights Commission.

Source: The Globe & Mail, June 18, 1962

Ontario lays first civil rights charge

The first prosecution under the Ontario Human Rights Code since it became law in 1962 was ordered today by the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

Mrs. W. A. Fletcher, owner of Fletcher’s Cottages at Brydon’s Bay, Gravenhurst, will be charged with refusing to rent to two couples because they are Jewish.

Since the code was introduced four years ago, there have been 12 cases of alleged discrimination but none has previously reached court. Others were resolved by conciliation.

Source: Toronto Daily Star, August 31, 1966

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