A wide-ranging and far-reaching bill aimed at expanding and updating Ontario’s Human Rights Code in Canada’s biggest province has been tabled in the Ontario legislature.
If passed, the bill would add four new areas of rights protection and provide recourse for those discriminated against because of social condition, immigration status, police records and genetics.
The bill was introduced by Liberal MPP Nathalie Des Rosiers, a former human rights lawyer and has the support of Ontario’s Human Rights Commission
“In my view, Ontario must have a Human Rights Code that addresses fully the new types of discrimination that Ontarians may feel and may face,” she says.
If passed, Des Rosiers says, the legislation “would ensure that people have fair access to employment, insurance and goods and services.”
Des Rosiers says her bill would help people living in poverty gain access to essential services and combat negative stereotyping.
“We know that poor people are often treated differently. They are told to move out of certain stores, or malls or offices, for no good reason,” she says.
Regarding discrimination against immigrants:
“We have heard of landlords refusing to rent to refugee claimants and of public services requiring various proofs of permanent residency, citizenship or immigration status in order to determine eligibility to to offer a service,” she says.
The proposed legislation has backing of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, which says the bill would address the “constitutional defects” in the provincial Human Rights Code, first established in 1962.
The acting executive director of the group, On Mendelson Aviv, says people in Ontario are regularly denied jobs or volunteer positions because of past contact with police.
But, he says, the records do not say whether charges were dropped or stayed of if the contact was a result of police error.
Another backer of the bill, Liberal MPP Mike Colle, says he is especially concerned with genetic discrimination.
“Right now in Ontario, technically you can deny people employment because of their parents’ medical history….that his quite common,” he says. “That discrimination happens every day. People can also be denied insurance because of that.”
The bill receives its second reading on Oct. 26.
With files from Canadian Press, CBC
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