2015 - The Ontario Human Rights Code is a provincial law that gives everybody the right to be free from discrimination in five parts of society – called social areas – based on one or more grounds. The five social areas are: employment, housing, services and facilities (such as education, health care, police, government, shops or restaurants), unions and vocational associations, and contracts or agreements.
From: Human rights under pressure – from policing to pandemics: Annual Report 2020–2021
The Chief Commissioner had the privilege of meeting with several Indigenous leaders from various territories across the province. The Chief Commissioner also met with representatives of the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres, the Ontario Native Women’s Association and with the Ontario Regional Chief.
La Commission ontarienne des droits de la personne (CODP) a lancé l’initiative PDV Pauvreté (Point de vue Pauvreté) afin de connaître les expériences vécues par le public, au moyen d’une enquête, de discussions avec des informateurs clés et d’autres actions, dans les domaines de la pauvreté, dont l’itinérance et la santé mentale et les dépendances.
Toronto – Two public interest inquiries by the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) will explore if new rental housing licensing bylaws in North Bay and Waterloo create discriminatory barriers to rental housing. New bylaws in the two municipalities come into force in the next few months – Waterloo’s on April 1, 2012 and North Bay’s on May 1, 2012.
From: With learning in mind
In keeping with its systemic mandate, the OHRC sought to spread the positive results achieved at one university to all public colleges and universities in Ontario. To that end, in 2016 the OHRC wrote to all public colleges and universities in Ontario asking them to implement six specific measures to reduce systemic barriers to post-secondary education for students with mental health disabilities (Appendix 1).
From: Paying the price: The human cost of racial profiling
The Commission’s mandate is set out in the Ontario Human Rights Code (the “Code”), the Ontario law that prohibits discrimination and harassment in several areas including employment, housing and services. The purpose of the Code is explained in its Preamble and is, in essence, to achieve a society that provides equal rights and opportunities to all its citizens in which there exists a climate of mutual respect and understanding for the dignity and worth of each person.
Toronto - The Ontario Human Rights Commission today released a report on consultations it conducted on human rights issues in insurance. In accordance with the Commission's mandate, the objective of the consultation was to promote awareness, understanding and advancement of human rights in the area of insurance and to examine alternatives to current practices by obtaining input from experts and regulators in the insurance industry as well as from consumers. Access to insurance in our society raises significant issues about distributive justice and fairness in the public sphere, issues that have received scant attention in Canada and in Ontario.
From: Discussion paper: Human rights issues in insurance
In May 2015, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) learned that a Canadian insurance company (RSA Canada) would not issue an emergency travel medical insurance policy to anyone who had ever been diagnosed with HIV or AIDS and obtained a copy of the exclusionary policy.
The OHRC wrote to RSA Canada to express concern that the HIV/AIDS exclusion might contravene Ontario’s Human Rights Code.
