Ajit Jain

The complainants alleged that Ontario discriminated against them on the basis of sex and disability by de-listing sex reassignment surgery as an insured service under OHIP.

The Tribunal found that Gender Identity Disorder is a disability and that the de-listing had a disproportionate adverse impact on three of the complainants who had already begun their transition program at the CAMH Gender Identity Clinic.

The Tribunal ordered Ontario to fund the surgery for these three complainants as an interim remedy, finding that the grandparenting provision in the amending regulation was not a reasonable accommodation.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission brought a motion to compel the Respondent to produce certain documents over which the Respondent claimed solicitor-client privilege.

The Tribunal first determined that the Respondent's description of the documents was insufficient to establish privilege and ordered the documents to be produced for inspection by the Tribunal.

After inspecting the documents, the majority of the Tribunal found that legal advice privilege attached to some of the documents, as they were part of the continuum of communication between government officials and legal counsel regarding the de-listing of sex re-assignment surgery.

However, the Tribunal ordered the production of other documents or portions thereof where privilege was not established or had been waived.

A partial dissent would have ordered full production of two specific documents, finding that privilege had been waived.

The complainant A.B. brought an urgent motion for an interim partial publication ban to protect their identity in a human rights complaint alleging discrimination in the termination of OHIP-funded services for gender transformation.

The Tribunal applied the Dagenais test and found that a partial publication ban was a reasonable alternate means to protect the complainant's privacy rights while limiting the expression rights of third parties as little as possible.

The motion was granted on an interim basis.