Meet our Commissioners

Commissioners have in-depth knowledge and expertise in human rights issues and issues relating to vulnerable populations, public policy, social values, and concepts of fairness, justice and public service. 

Chief Commissioner Patricia DeGuire

Patricia DeGuire is a Woman-of-colour who pushes boundaries to ensure access to justice, equality and equity. She has a passion for the rule of law, and a commitment to public service, mentoring, coaching and legal education.

A member of the Ontario bar since February 1993, she is a professional adjudicator/arbitrator/mediator/coach, and was a Deputy Judge with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice – SCC Division. For over 25 years, she has served on provincial and federal tribunals, including Vice-Chair at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, the Immigration Appeal Division/IRB, and the OLRB/Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal. She has also held senior leadership roles with JusticeNet, Legal Aid Ontario, the Ontario and Canadian Bar Associations, and the WLAO. Patricia was a member of the CABL, OBA, LSUC and WLAO mentorship programs and is an avid mentor and coach for many youths and adults in the legal and other professions. She is a constitutional law scholar; holds a Fellow of Chartered Insurance Professionals of Canada – Claims Major; and is co-author and co-editor of the first Canadian Insurance Dictionary.

Patricia served in leading roles with Black North Initiative and is a founder of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers and the Black Law Student Association Canada. She also was a frequent lecturer at the Organization of Commonwealth Caribbean Bars Association International Law Forum, and with the Faculty of Society of Ontario Adjudicators and Regulators. She is the founder of the Forum for Education for At-Risk Youths, and speaks often to students at all levels of schools. Patricia’s many career honours include the BLSA-C 2021 Impact Award, Canadian Bar Association 2020 Touchstone Award, CBA Rare-Find in April 2012, and the OBA’s Distinguished Service Award in 2020. She also received Legal Aid Ontario’s 2007 GEM Award for outstanding public service for providing access to justice access for low-income individuals and communities, the 2006 Law Society of Upper Canada Lincoln Alexander Award, and the BLSAC named the cup for the Julius Alexander Diversity Moot in her honour – the Patricia DeGuire Diversity Moot Cup.

Appointment: August 19, 2021 – August 18, 2023; August 19, 2023 - August 18, 2026

Commissioner Jewel Amoah

Jewel Amoah is a Canadian-Trinidadian human rights lawyer, activist and academic. Jewel has facilitated organizational change in various domestic and international public sector entities by raising awareness of harassment, discrimination, human rights and equity in teaching, learning and working environments. These environments have provided an opportunity to apply and expand her academic analysis of intersectionality and its impact on attaining equitable outcomes based on race, gender, gender identity and disability identities, among others.

Jewel is committed to research, advocacy and activism to inspire and produce systemic change, enhance access to justice and the full enjoyment of rights. She is a graduate of McMaster University, the University of Ottawa and the University of Cape Town. She lectured for four years at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad and is currently the Human Rights & Equity Advisor with the Halton District School Board.

Appointment: May 28, 2020 – May 27, 2025

Commissioner Randall Arsenault

Randall Arsenault is a 19-year veteran of the Toronto Police Service. Randall has experience in Youth Services, the Community Response Unit, Street Crime Unit, Criminal Investigative Bureau, Primary Response and has worked with the Aboriginal Peacekeeping Unit for over 20 years. Randall was also the Service's first Community Engagement Officer. An early adapter of social networking, Randall uses his global reach to engage and educate. Randall speaks at numerous conferences and has facilitated workshops on cyber bullying, effective engagement strategies and modern day policing.

Randall has taken leadership roles in many grassroots initiatives, and local and national charities. He is the recipient of awards and recognition for community outreach and engagement, and is an advocate for mental health awareness. Randall is a licensed carpenter, and in his spare time enjoys the outdoors.

Re-appointment: January 9, 2023 – January 8, 2025

Commissioner Brian Eyolfson

Brian Eyolfson is a lawyer who practices alternative dispute resolution, providing independent investigation, mediation and adjudication services, primarily in the area of human rights.

He was a Commissioner with the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, from September 2016 to June 2019. Before that, Brian served as Acting Deputy Director with the Legal Services Branch of Ontario’s Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation. From 2007 to 2016, he was a full-time Vice-Chair with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, where he adjudicated and mediated many human rights applications. Brian was a Senior Staff Lawyer with Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto (ALS) where he practiced human rights, Aboriginal and administrative law. He also represented ALS at the Ipperwash Inquiry. Brian also previously served as Counsel to the OHRC.

Brian has a B.Sc. in psychology and an LL.B. from Queen’s University, and an LL.M., specializing in administrative law, from Osgoode Hall Law School. He was called to the Ontario Bar in 1994. Brian is a member of Couchiching First Nation in Treaty #3 territory.

Appointment: November 12, 2022 – November 11, 2025

Commissioner Violetta Igneski

Violetta Igneski is a professor in ethics and political philosophy at McMaster University. For more than 18 years, her teaching and research have been focused on human rights, global justice and collective responsibility. She is a published author in leading journals and has presented her work at international conferences. In addition to her academic contributions, she has demonstrated a commitment to promoting an environment of respect and inclusion in various professional and administrative capacities, currently serving as Chair of the McMaster Research Ethics Board and Equity Officer in her department. She was awarded her PhD from the University of Toronto.

Re-appointment: January 9, 2023 – January 8, 2025

Commissioner Gary Pieters

Gary Pieters is an educator and has served as a member (part-time) of the Minister of Education's Advisory Council on Special Education since 2017, and as a member (part-time) of the Toronto Islands Residential Trust Corporation since 2020. He is a principal with the Toronto District School Board, and is a commissioner and past president of the Urban Alliance on Race Relations. He attended the University of Toronto and earned his Bachelor of Arts (BA) in African Studies and Political Science as a member of New College; and his Bachelor of Education (BEd) and Master of Education (MEd) at Ontario Institute for Studies in Education/University of Toronto (OISE/UT).

Appointment: March 25, 2023 – March 24, 2026

Commissioner Sandi Bell

Sandi Bell identifies as a Black Indigenous woman with disabilities.  Her passion to rid society of and prevent racism, discrimination, and oppression is more than a topic or research project; it is a way of life.

Sandi’s work in disability rights has been extensive and in many different areas. In the late seventies and eighties, as a school Trustee in Hamilton, she spearheaded initiatives including advocacy flowing from Bill 82 to ensure that children with disabilities previously denied public education were welcome with needed supports. She was a member of the Mental Health & Law Advisory Committee of the Canadian Mental Health Commission. More recently, she was appointed Chair of the AODA Health Care Standards Development Committee, which was tasked to recommend accessibility standards to the Ontario Minister of Seniors and Accessibility and the Minister of Health to reduce and prevent barriers in health care in Ontario hospitals.  She also served for two terms as part-time Commissioner for the Canadian Human Rights Commission. In her roles as a rights educator, mediator, Commissioner, and a member of the Appeal Division of the Immigration and Refugee Board, she gained a more fulsome understanding of the access to justice barriers that many individuals who experience discrimination routinely face.

The entirety of Sandi’s professional and volunteer endeavours have, in one way or another, been in pursuit of equality, human rights, social justice and inclusion for diverse and marginalized communities. With well over 30 years of experience in the areas of human rights, anti-racism, anti-oppression, and equity, she has worked closely with many different equality-seeking communities. The totality of her experiences offers her great insight into the experiences and impacts of discrimination based on one, multiple and intersecting protected grounds, and also on the larger context and the systemic barriers and issues that contribute to ongoing systemic discrimination.

Appointment: March 23, 2023 – March 24, 2025

 

Administrative: 

Profile on Commissioner Violetta Igneski

Violetta Igneski: An ethical look at human rights


Are ethics and philosophy important to understanding human rights? For 18 years, Commissioner Violetta Igneski has focused on this very intersection. “If I say there is a human right to have our basic needs met, for example, it actually means that someone has a duty to do something about it so I can have my right fulfilled,” explains Igneski.

An associate professor of Philosophy at McMaster University, Igneski teaches and researches human rights, global justice and collective responsibility. She tries to bring nuance to these areas by exploring questions about who has a duty to do something to whom, if human rights are actually going to be substantive things. “I’m lucky enough to have a voice, teach students and share topics that they might not have thought about,” says Igneski. “To think about, for example, do we have obligations to aid other people? Why would I have to sacrifice my interests to help other people? What would that mean?”

Igneski was the first in her family to go to university, and earned her PhD in Philosophy from the University of Toronto. She finds the ability to have such discussions in the classroom enriching. She sees them as a way to advocate for social justice.  

“Fulfilling and respecting human rights depends on political and legal structures and institutions, but it’s also important to consider our personal decisions and this brings us into the sphere of ethics,” observes Igneski. Personal decisions, she elaborates, would include how we behave and act towards each other, how we treat other people, and how these actions take place within collective contexts.

“We need to think about human rights at the community, state and international levels, so we can coordinate our efforts and figure out how we can best implement those, and then divide up and allocate the tasks to each of us as individuals,” she says. “It is about asking what is required of me, as an individual in this collective context with other people.”

Igneski extends this idea to consider how research in ethics applies to her role at the OHRC, especially during a global pandemic. One of the things that has become evident during COVID-19 is an increase in people’s general awareness of inequalities in our society.

“These inequalities have been exacerbated by the pandemic,” says Igneski. “I think that there seems to be, with this awareness, some positive energy and so, some potential to change things. I see some new understanding of why there are social programs to help people in these situations, and also why they are inadequate.”

Through her role at the OHRC, Igneski hopes to build on this momentum. She wants us all to think about changemaking as we witness the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on people living in poverty, or living with disability, on racialized persons and Indigenous peoples.

Igneski also talks about how in 2020, the OHRC released its Policy statement on a human rights-based approach to managing the COVID-19 pandemic, published a series of FAQs on rights and obligations, and was vocal about collecting human-rights based data to know the real impacts of this pandemic. Each of these initiatives shows how the OHRC continually examines issues from an intersecting and ethical standpoint.

“Poverty requires a lot more attention, and addressing it is currently a strategic priority of the OHRC. We see so many issues and factors undermining people’s access to healthcare, and poverty happens to overlap with many of these,” observes Igneski. “We have some understanding about the intersecting grounds, but working on communicating them in an effective manner and educating the public is one of the most important roles I see the OHRC playing.”

Igneski brings her applied theoretical knowledge to the OHRC with the hope of working with people on the ground and in the community. In addition to her academic contributions, she has shown her commitment to promoting an environment of respect and inclusion in various professional and administrative capacities, currently serving as Chair of the McMaster Research Ethics Board and Equity Officer in her department. She has authored several research papers on the duty to aid, ethical living and political philosophy. So she continues to live the intersection between ethics and human rights, to the benefit of all Ontarians.

Profile on Commissioner Jewel Amoah

Jewel Amoah: An obligation to take responsibility


“We all exist relative to something else. I think that’s really where we get our identity – who I am relative to each of you in age, race and culture?” says Commissioner Jewel Amoah, a Canadian-Trinidadian human rights lawyer, activist and academic. Amoah believes that we are hard-wired to function around comparisons, and discrimination happens when we structure those comparisons to disadvantage others.

Amoah is currently the Assistant Dean, Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design, University of Toronto. She has also worked with organizations both in Canada and abroad, providing extensive advice on gender equality and legislative reform.

While studying Literature and Political Science, and then going to law school, Amoah  was inspired by the events unfolding at that time – the Oka Crisis (Kanesatake Resistance), Nelson Mandela’s release from prison and the Gulf War – which all exposed human rights challenges around the world. “In the geopolitical context that we live in, we are grossly advantaged by the disadvantages that many other people experience. And I think that fascinated me personally, and perhaps also inspired me in a professional sense,” adds Amoah. “I was intrigued by the politics of the world, and really fascinated by notions of identity, geography, rights, access to justice, and what all of that means.”

Amoah is a graduate of McMaster University, the University of Ottawa and the University of Cape Town, and lectured for four years at the University of the West Indies in Trinidad. Identity and equality issues are at the core of her research interests. In her doctoral dissertation, Amoah examined the impact of intersecting identities on attaining equality. She developed GRACE, an analytical tool to show how the intersection of gender, race, age and culture affect access to equality rights for girls subject to traditional or customary law as well as modern day civil law in South Africa. Her research pointed her to some socio-economic situations/cases in rural South Africa, where gender, race, age and culture could place an individual at a severe disadvantage since she views these like axes equality operates around.

“Think about GRACE as somebody’s name,” explains Amoah. “If you change any part of your name, it doesn’t mean the same thing. So just as if you remove any aspect of your identity, your outcome doesn’t remain the same. Why is it that a tweak in identity is going to change your outcomes, when if we are really committed to equality, we should all be entitled to the same outcome? Gender, race, age and culture are not really interchangeable – they're immutable, because they all combine to identify who we are and what we get access to in the moment.”

In her role as an OHRC Commissioner, Amoah brings her own experience as a racialized immigrant woman. She believes that issues of race, gender, identity and experiences need to be examined against the current context of post-colonialism, economics and natural environment. For example, she asks: “Why is the economic emphasis centered around North America and Europe, although the majority of people do not live there?”

She adds, “I stand in awe with these power differentials in the world – how they came to be and how they are sustained.” Even in her current role as an equity advisor, she sees how education is itself a factor of colonial structures and by extension, has created room for more inequities.

Amoah views the OHRC as a leader in the community and public arenas, and its policy role is about adapting systems to the reality and needs of individual identities, as well as collective community identities. “There’s a lot of inadvertent exclusion, because people say this is just the way we've always done things,” says Amoah. “And maybe you have always done things in a way that has always disadvantaged others, but now that we are aware of that continued disadvantage, we have an obligation to take responsibility for it.”

Amoah explains how the OHRC looks at ordinary events like policing, housing access, health care, or the right to read or play lacrosse, and identifies areas where things can be problematic: “I think the OHRC’s role is to raise awareness that equality is everywhere, but that means so is inequality. The OHRC’s job is to peel away that facade of niceness that we all like to hide behind... and help understand how we are being conscious and active in identifying and addressing inequality.”

Amoah feels that the background people come from is always important. “But more important is what you do to leverage or interpret those experiences in your background,” says Amoah. “Even if those backgrounds are ones of pure privilege and entitlement, that also has a lot of influence on how you view yourself and your role in the world. So yes, I think where we come from is largely influential in terms of who we become, but not necessarily determinative. At some point we do have to take responsibility for that.”

Profile on Commissioner Randall Arsenault

Randall Arsenault: Using social media to break stereotypes, challenge the status quo


At first, Randall Arsenault may seem an unusual guy to be pegged for the title of a famous social media influencer. Having spent close to two decades as a police officer,  Arsenault sees his social media outreach as a way to engage with the community and humanize the badge. “How I am online is exactly how I am as a person. If I don’t educate, I at least hope to entertain,” says Arsenault, who is famous for the way he spreads information about preventing crime. Arsenault’s work on addressing bullying in schools, homelessness and mental health are also important assets that he brings to his role as an OHRC Commissioner.

“I come from a policing family – my father was a police officer in Toronto,” says Arsenault. “But growing up, I never actually wanted to become a police officer. The reason for that is, I never really liked police culture.” What Arsenault didn’t like, as a child, were the collateral issues that could affect police officers – such as potential burnout, substance abuse, domestic violence and suicide.

Arsenault admits he was a rebel growing up and got into trouble with the police himself as a youth. He moved to British Columbia to stay with his grandmother and complete high school. “After high school, I was kind of lost,” recalls Arsenault. “I was on social assistance at two different times. I remember my friend and I would go to a McDonalds or Burger King drive-thru at closing time. I knew people who were paying at the drive thru would often drop change. We’d go and look for spare change, just as a way to get money and buy bread because we were hungry. I was rebellious.” Eventually he got an apprenticeship in construction, and that helped him get back on his feet and “stay out of trouble.”

When Arsenault moved back to Ontario, to explore opportunities during the construction boom, his father was working with the Aboriginal Peacekeeping Unit. He is proud of his Indigenous roots from his father’s side of the family, which he discovered only after his father started doing work with the Aboriginal Peacekeeping Unit.

“That was the first time I really saw my dad in a different role, where he was very proactive and giving back to the community,” says Arsenault. The community engagement side to policing intrigued him and that pushed him to apply for the police service.

“I love my job as a police officer,” says Arsenault. Reflecting on how policing has changed since his father was an officer, Arsenault notes, “We’re constantly evolving, which is a good thing. This needs to happen for the public and it needs to happen for us.”

Arsenault has experience in Youth Services, the Community Response Unit, Street Crime Unit, Criminal Investigative Bureau, Primary Response and has worked with the Aboriginal Peacekeeping Unit. He was also the Service's first Community Engagement Officer.

Arsenault attributes his growing social media presence to the fact that he remains authentic and “does not put on a façade.” “I don’t take things too seriously, I get involved with the community and I challenge the status quo, even within the police service. Sometimes that doesn’t always go over very well, but it is what it is, and I’m okay with that.”

In between sharing jokes and funny videos on social media, Arsenault also uses crucial data such as crime statistics in neighbourhoods and stories about school safety to highlight important information.

In his role as a human rights commissioner, Arsenault has been vocal about the cascading effects that mental health has on people living with homelessness and addictions. "Someone asked me a while ago, what do you want to work on as a human rights commissioner? And they all kind of fall into one category. If I say mental health, I mean homelessness and I mean drug use. Because you know, they all affect the other," says Arsenault.

He adds, “It’s important for me to bring to the Commission a voice perhaps that’s not expected from an officer.” He has been subject to public scrutiny ever since he took on the role at the OHRC – which he welcomes as he continues to break stereotypes and challenge the status quo.

“I’ve been exposed to police culture and been around cops, my entire life. I’ve seen a good way of doing things and a bad way of doing things,” says Arsenault. He has built his credibility, both online and on the ground, by doing things the good and authentic way – by fostering community relationships or networks, by spreading information about crime prevention, and by adding a novel approach to both policing and human rights.

Administrative: 

Profile on Commissioner Gary Pieters

Gary Pieters: From Complainant to Commissioner - Amplifying a human rights ‘system’ mindset in how we think, act and treat each other


Gary Pieters, an educator, brings his own lived and professional experience as a Black Canadian that has driven him to dismantle systemic inequity. “My twin sibling and I were raised in a single-grandparent home having very limited social resources,” says Pieters. “Students come to school with lived experiences of poverty, and poverty can impact on access to resources. So when you look at barriers and poverty, it leads you to look at systems with a poverty-reduction lens.”

Before becoming an educator, Pieters held a variety of public and private sector jobs and volunteer experiences. He brings this history to the OHRC, along with skill sets cultivated from over two decades of leadership roles in equity initiatives in the education sector as teacher, vice-principal and principal.

Pieters first experienced Ontario’s human rights system as a complainant, when he felt the need to call out racism and vindicate his own rights. From being a complainant to becoming a Commissioner, Pieters talks about the importance of embedding human rights into all areas of life, especially education. He experienced long standing anti-Black racism in the public school system in Toronto as a student in the 1980s that continued into his career as educator.  “When students come into the classroom, it's not just the students. It's the parents, and it's the whole community that comes into school. That school is at the heart of the community,” he says.

Pieters strongly believes that education should provide equitable access to opportunity. He explains, “When students come to school, the school can either teach for belonging and citizenship, or it can marginalize students. So my whole philosophy around education is teaching from an inclusive lens, and that means dismantling any individual and systemic barriers that hinder students and communities.”

Another issue he brings up is language. English is not the first language for many people in diverse metropolitan cities. “There’s auditory discrimination, where people are discriminated against based on their tone or accent,” says Pieters. In situations where language can be a barrier, we need to rethink what and how we teach children, young people and adults in order to empower them with an amplified lens “to be self-advocates, who advocate for themselves and their needs. A basic fundamental of human rights and social justice is self-advocacy.”

Pieters believes that the human rights landscape we exist in is complex and ever-evolving. “There is a significant rise in racism, racial profiling, Islamophobia, homophobia and anti-Asian racism,” says Pieters. “Whether it is in schools or communities, people need to be able to add language to their own experiences.” He also oversaw a program on teaching young people how to identify, understand, address and prevent gender-based violence, sexism and exclusion.

Every year during Pride month, the issue of raising the flag within some denominational schools and district school boards has come up for debate. This has re-traumatized LGBTQ2S+ students, families and communities. “Raising the flag is extremely important because it affirms the need for inclusion – that everyone belongs, everyone’s rights are centred in our Human Rights Code,” says Pieters.

“I want to be a consequential Commissioner in the sense that I want to leave a lasting positive impact on the human rights landscape of Ontario,” says Pieters. He is an action-oriented leader who understands the challenges of living with and facing discrimination, and defending his rights to be free from it. “I will bring to life that type of passion and that type of energy, to invigorate the whole concept of a society where everyone can succeed and prosper, with respect for their fundamental human rights, to flourish and thrive,” says Pieters.

Pieters is also keen to tap into new areas where human rights needs to be explored. Examples are young people and access to justice, and the acceleration of technology, artificial intelligence and privacy.

“Incarceration rates are a big issue, and young people (especially Indigenous, Black and racialized) with limited resources are incarcerated at a higher rate,” says Pieters. He also notes the school-to-prison pipeline is an issue that needs to be looked at. He adds, “Racialized youth are disproportionately suspended from schools. When you are pushing children out of school, it denies them access to education and it puts them into harm’s way, and harm’s way is an open-ended concept.”

Considering COVID-19, Pieters observes how people are increasingly learning, working, shopping and banking from home. “Access to the Internet and connectivity and devices has become a human rights issue, especially for people who are poor, and cannot afford the cost of Internet, the cost of a device, the monthly connectivity rates whether it's for their phone bill or the data.”

Pieters spends his leisure time looking at and photographing Toronto’s skylines, walking or cycling by the water. He volunteers for community projects and provides his expertise for things that matter. “My goal is to help people develop a human rights mindset. It is embedded into the way we think, act and treat each other.”

Pieters has a social media presence and likes to tweet items that interest him on his Twitter account.

Profile on Commissioner Brian Eyolfson

Brian Eyolfson: We need to meaningfully listen to the lived experiences of Indigenous peoples


Five years ago, Brian Eyolfson was appointed as a Commissioner with the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. “My job, through this National Inquiry, was to carry out a very large mandate in a way that put family members and survivors of violence first, and in a way that was trauma-informed, decolonizing and inclusive,” says Eyolfson, a Two-Spirit member of Couchiching First Nation in Treaty #3 territory. 

“It was a privilege to be involved in the process and to witness the courage, the strength and the resilience of so many family members and survivors who shared their truths with the National Inquiry, and many who shared publicly with everyone in Canada at public hearings.” Listening to the stories and lived experiences of the survivors has had a profound impact on Eyolfson. It reinforced his understanding of the many systemic practices that continue to affect the lives of Indigenous people, and create vulnerability for Indigenous women, girls, 2SLGBTQQIA people.

“There are things that can be done to change this,” says Eyolfson. “Education and awareness are important. We also need political will and for everybody in society to take action.”

This Inquiry’s 2019 final report identified overarching findings including colonial violence, human rights abuses, racism and most notably, genocide. “We also found that an absolute paradigm shift is required to dismantle colonialism within Canadian society, and from all levels of government and public institutions. Ideologies and instruments of colonialism, racism and misogyny, past and present, must be rejected,” says Eyolfson.

Eyolfson grew up in Fort Frances in northwestern Ontario. He pursued an undergraduate degree in psychology and volunteered with organizations addressing mental health issues. Around the same time, equality rights provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms came into effect. Also, the provisions of the Indian Act that took Indian status away from women who married non-status men, were amended. Eyolfson started to reflect more on the impacts of colonialism on his community.

“I saw community disconnect for a lot of people, due to direct sex discrimination and intergenerational sex discrimination. I also thought a lot about the impact that residential schools had on Indigenous families and communities, as my maternal grandparents had attended residential school,” says Eyolfson.

His interest in human rights and Indigenous rights influenced him to become a lawyer, and he now brings over two decades of legal experience to the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC). He practices alternative dispute resolution and provides independent investigation, mediation and adjudication services, primarily in the area of human rights.  

Eyolfson sees public inquiries as an effective way to gather evidence, address issues and create positive change. From his own experiences as a Commissioner on the National Inquiry and his extensive background in Indigenous reconciliation, Eyolfson believes that people with lived experience have the true expertise and need to be meaningfully heard.

“Public inquiries can be educational, can create awareness and shed light on important issues,” says Eyolfson. “For the OHRC, public inquiries can be an effective means to gather the necessary evidence and information that is needed to create recommendations for positive change in the area of human rights, such as improving policies and practices to prevent and eliminate discrimination and create equitable opportunities or resolve situations of conflict.”  

Eyolfson also has considerable knowledge of issues affecting different communities across Ontario, particularly Indigenous peoples and communities. As the co-chair of the OHRC’s Indigenous Reconciliation Advisory Group, he has been actively working with Indigenous peoples and communities to advance reconciliation and substantive equality.

“I think it’s really important to have Indigenous peoples guide or lead the conversation on reconciliation,” says Eyolfson. “I think the Commission needs to listen to build relationships… it needs to meaningfully listen to the lived experience of Indigenous peoples and what they think would be solutions. I think it’s about centring the voices of Indigenous peoples and working along with them in a respectful way.”

Before serving as a Commissioner with the National Inquiry, Eyolfson was the Acting Deputy Director with the Legal Services Branch of Ontario’s Ministry of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation. From 2007 to 2016, he was a full-time Vice-Chair with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, where he adjudicated and mediated many human rights applications. Eyolfson was also a senior staff lawyer with Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto (ALS), where he practiced human rights, Aboriginal and administrative law. He represented ALS at the Ipperwash Inquiry, and before that was counsel with the OHRC.

Throughout his career, Brian Eyolfson has focused on embedding lived experience in human rights work. This focus, and his own unique lived experiences, are invaluable assets to his guidance as an OHRC Commissioner.