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50th anniversary

Racism

There is a lot of racism going on in countries such as Canada and the United States. People are getting beaten up for their skin colour, clothing, and religion. In this essay I am going to talk about racism that has been going on for a long time and which still happens now.

A bit of history...

From: Annual Report 2011-2012 - Human rights: the next generation

Celebrating International Human Rights Day, circa 1962

While we deplore and condemn violations of human rights elsewhere in the world and stand aghast before such ugly manifestations as the Berlin Wall, we must never cease to concern ourselves with those walls of prejudice which still exist in our own community – and sometimes in our own minds – and which deny our fellow citizens that justice and equality of opportunity which is their inalienable right. Justice, like charity, should begin at home.

On the 50th anniversary of the Ontario Human Rights Code: 1962 – 2012

From: Annual Report 2011-2012 - Human rights: the next generation

By A. Alan Borovoy

On such occasions, comparisons between then and now are irresistible. In this case, the comparisons are also monumental.

Little more than two decades before 1962, a boatload of Jews fleeing European Nazism was unceremoniously denied admission to Canada. The incident produced little public reaction. In the 1970s, boatloads of Vietnamese fleeing Asian Communism were not only allowed to come here, but in many cases, also subsidized to do so.

From the next generation…

From: Annual Report 2011-2012 - Human rights: the next generation

 

Student journalist speaks out on rental bylaws

Now, we’re starting to see the Commission provide a check and balance against the ways municipalities have traditionally dealt with boarding houses, residential care facilities, and rental bylaws.

Rental bylaws, like the one that was recently passed in Waterloo, have serious impacts for us students. Now, specifically targeting students in a bylaw is illegal.

A bit of history

Working, buying a home

Ontario’s pioneering Fair Employment Practices Act of 1951 prohibited discriminatory employment practices, and a year earlier the Conveyancing and Law of Property Act was amended to end real estate provisions that required someone buying a house to agree that their property “shall never be sold, assigned, transferred, leased to, and shall never been occupied by any person of Jewish, Hebrew, Semitic, Negro or coloured race or blood.”

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