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TORONTO – Today, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) launched a survey for educators and other professionals who have experience with reading disabilities, as part of its inquiry into human rights issues that affect students with reading disabilities in Ontario’s public education system.

I am writing today on behalf of the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) about the government’s consultation on Ontario’s next Poverty Reduction Strategy (Strategy). The OHRC calls on Ontario to take a human rights-based approach to poverty reduction by entrenching the types of economic and social responses to COVID-19 into permanent solutions that will once and for all protect the well-being of everyone in our province.

The OHRC encourages the government to once again heed the advice of health and human rights experts who agree that Ontario needs demographic data to effectively fight COVID-19.

Today, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) notes the release of Justice David Cole’s Final Report, which finds that Ontario has not complied with a legal settlement and order requiring it to ensure that prisoners with mental health disabilities receive appropriate mental health services, and are not placed in segregation except as a last resort.

I am writing to you today on behalf of the OHRC to provide advice on steps the government can take to apply a human rights lens to reducing transmission of COVID-19 in Ontario’s correctional facilities and detention centres. 

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) is working hard to continue its inquiry into racial profiling and racial discrimination of Black persons by the Toronto Police Service (TPS).

On behalf of the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC), thank you for your ongoing efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic.

This report summarizes the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s (OHRC) findings and human rights concerns about the conditions of confinement at Toronto South Detention Centre (TSDC).

Under the Ontario Human Rights Code (Code), the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has the mandate to make policies that provide guidance on human rights obligations under the Code and to make recommendations that promote human rights during situations of tension or conflict.

This document sets out various actions that governments can take that are broadly consistent with a human rights-based approach to managing the COVID-19 pandemic. These actions are neither comprehensive nor exhaustive. Instead, they are a compilation of possible responses that are consistent with Canada and Ontario’s human rights obligations.