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Like all publications and policies of the Ontario Human Rights Commission, Human Rights and Policing is a joint effort, involving a lot of consultation and conversation. The guide draws on what we learned working in partnership with the Toronto Police Service and the Toronto Police Services Board. Our three-year collaboration, the Human Rights Project Charter (2007-2010) was a ground-breaking project, aimed at making real progress in building a human rights culture in a complex organization.

Human rights and policing: creating and sustaining organizational change is the first guide of its kind in Ontario. It aims to encourage and support police services across the province to better fill their critical role in preserving safety in our communities. As Ontario becomes more diverse, all parts of society – including police services – must respond to meet the changing needs of a changing population. Applying an inclusive human rights lens is key to successfully preventing and resolving future conflicts.

Over the past few decades, we have seen major changes in communities across Ontario and across Canada. The make-up of our neighbourhoods, and the needs and realities of residents, are very different than they were in past years. Police services are also evolving to reflect the needs and issues of the people they serve. Adding human rights values to the mix is an important part of this evolution.

Human rights organizational change: The process of moving an organization to be more inclusive, and to fully respect and accommodate the dignity, worth and rights of all people. Human rights organizational change is a planned change process aimed at understanding and complying with human rights obligations in all employment and service practices.

Police services have many reasons to engage in human rights organizational change. Police services across Ontario see an increasingly diverse society. As the Right Honourable Beverley McLachlin, former Chief Justice of Canada has said:

Effective human rights organizational change requires a solid understanding of the legal and ethical requirements of human rights in Ontario, and the elements of effective organizational change.

Police provide a vital function that often brings them into conflict with members of the public. As a result, police can face complaints (now called applications) based on the Code. The pattern of these complaints provides police services with some idea of the major human rights concerns they currently face. Table 2: Human rights complaints against police in Ontario

Organizational change theories provide many good tools for organizations to effectively manage and respond to change. Considerable knowledge and experience is available on how organizations work and how they can be best changed. Experience has shown that changing large and complex organizations is not easy. Problems are often denied or go undetected. Even if problems are seen, effective solutions are elusive. Simple orders from above often fail because they do not anticipate and address resistance from key stakeholders.

Police organizations across Ontario have responded to the changing needs of an increasingly diverse population for many years. These efforts have included training projects and, in some places, efforts to recruit members of underrepresented groups.

Over the last few years, new strategies to support human rights organizational change in policing organizations have been developed. This section describes some of the key actions that were taken during the Toronto Police Service Human Rights Project, but many have also been used in various shapes and forms by other police organizations.

Anti-racism: A commitment and planned ongoing process to eliminate racism and racial discrimination in its various forms (individual, institutional and systemic). The first step in anti-racism is admitting that racism exists in individuals, organizations and society as a whole and acknowledging the need for active ongoing measures to counter it.

Ontario Human Rights policies, guides and guidelines Count me in!

Human rights in rental housing are not just a concern for housing providers and government, although they clearly share a large part of the responsibility. Nor are they a matter only of interest to a small group of tenants and their advocates. We all have a stake in ensuring that the human rights protections we value have meaning in our communities.

Mount Sinai Hospital (MSH) is a large patient care, teaching and research hospital affiliated with the University of Toronto. Since 2007, Media Corp Inc. has named MSH one of Greater Toronto’s Top Employers. MSH seeks to be a national leader in all of its diversity and human rights programs, and to have a staff team that reflects the diverse patients they serve.

KPMG LLP (KPMG) is the Canadian member firm affiliated with KPMG International, a global network of professional firms providing audit, tax and advisory services to clients in over 140 countries. KPMG in Canada has 33 offices nationally and over 5,000 professional staff.

Ontario’s New Approach to Aboriginal Affairs commits the government to working with Aboriginal leaders and organizations to improve education outcomes among Aboriginal students.[32] The challenge for the Ministry of Education (MOE) in helping Aboriginal students and assessing progress “was the absence of reliable student-specific data on the achievement of First Nation, Métis, and Inuit students across Ontario.”

The University of Guelph (U of G) includes seven colleges, with programs spanning the natural and physical sciences, social sciences and the humanities. The U of G, which is committed to equity, is ranked as one of Canada's top comprehensive universities for its commitment to student learning and innovative research.

DiverseCity Counts, a three-year research project, is tracking the diversity in leadership across the corporate, public, not-for-profit and education sectors in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). The resulting report, DiverseCity Counts: A Snapshot of Diversity in the Greater Toronto Area, is the first research effort offering a benchmark of the representation of the GTA’s visible minorities in senior leadership roles across sectors.

Develop a plan: Interested in starting initiatives to raise awareness about discrimination? Interested in addressing diversity issues or promoting inclusion, or anti-racism and anti-discrimination practices? If you are, you start by developing a plan of action that meets the needs. A plan is a “must” for anti-racism work because it encourages a sustained commitment and awareness; anti-racism work is not a one-time event.

3.1 Taking stock of activities Know what is happening: First, look at all your existing activities. Some municipalities may already have committees set up or a city councillor or mayor who is interested in taking on issues of anti-racism. Are there departments or agencies in the city’s governance structure, such as health or the police, which have committees or individuals looking into race-related issues? Make a list of what is being done now, and by whom, to avoid duplication and to find ways of building on each other’s work.

Many municipalities have First Nations, Métis and Inuit populations that border the municipality or visit the municipality for services such as health care, education and business. Other municipalities have large urban Aboriginal populations within the community. Aboriginal people have historically experienced significant racism and discrimination. To address their unique historical experience as part of anti-racism and anti-discrimination work requires recognition of their unique history and status in Canada.

Look at successful efforts by other municipalities as a starting point for anti-racism and anti-discrimination activities for your municipality. This section covers five key areas:

Affiliation of Multicultural Societies and Service Agencies of BC (AMSSA) www.amssa.org Canadian Coalition of Municipalities against Racism and Discrimination (CCMARD) unesco.ca/home-accueil/ccmard-ccmcrd Canadian Commission for UNESCO (CCU) www.unesco.ca Canadian Race Relations Foundation (CRRF) www.crrf.ca

This chart provides a useful tool to identify possible stakeholders in your municipality, and useful information related to these that should help in planning anti-racism and anti-discrimination initiatives. Questions posed in the boxes are intended to help gather the information that will specify the chart for your municipal context. You can also add other stakeholders to the chart.