From: Room for everyone: Human rights and rental housing licensing
Rental housing bylaws discriminate if they cause someone to be disadvantaged in a protected social area – like housing – because of the person’s association with a protected ground. If a bylaw is found to be discriminatory, a municipality would have to show that the absence or variation of the bylaw would cause them “undue hardship” in terms of health and safety or cost ramifications.
Ontario's Human Rights Code, the first in Canada, was enacted in 1962.
The Code prohibits actions that discriminate against people based on a protected ground in a protected social area.
From: Not on the menu: OHRC inquiry report on sexualized and gender-based dress codes in restaurants
Under the Code, the OHRC works to identify, prevent and eliminate discrimination, and promote and advance human rights across the province. Our goal is to create an inclusive society where everyone is valued, treated with equal dignity and respect, and takes responsibility and action, so human rights are a lived reality.
The exemption from the prohibition of employment discrimination (section 24(1)(a) of the Human Rights Code) is a concern for religious communities; narrow interpretation results in undue infringement of the right to freely associate with others in a religious community.
From: An intersectional approach to discrimination: Addressing multiple grounds in human rights claims
Some courts and tribunals have started to acknowledge the need to make special provision for discrimination based on multiple grounds and to recognize the social, economic and historical context in which it takes place. However, despite these advancements, the courts’ understanding of a proper intersectional approach is still in its infancy. What follows is a discussion of recent cases in which a move towards a multiple grounds or intersectional analysis is evidenced in either a majority or dissenting opinion.
This paper encourages a rethinking of the ideas of tolerance and accommodation, suggesting that these concepts may be inappropriate for a country that has a history of diversity, multiculturalism and equality. The paper considers the contexts in which the language of tolerance and accommodation is located.
From: Human rights and the family in Ontario
It is important to take into account the ways in which parents and children are affected by their membership in other historically disadvantaged groups. Individuals may be subjected to discrimination based on more than one Code ground, and these grounds may “intersect”, producing unique experiences of disadvantage and discrimination.
From: Paying the price: The human cost of racial profiling
This section of the Report will focus specifically on what the Commission heard about racial profiling from members of Ontario’s Aboriginal Community. The term “Aboriginal” is determined by the federal government to include four sub groups:
Learn more about how the Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA) framework can help you apply a human rights lens to support policy, program and service system planning and implementation in a way that mitigates discrimination and disproportionate adverse impacts on Code-protected groups.
Learn more about how the Human Rights-Based Approach (HRBA) framework can help you apply a human rights lens to support municipal by-laws, policy, program and service system planning and implementation in a way that mitigates discrimination and disproportionate adverse impacts on Code-protected groups.
