Alisha Maria Krishna

The applicant, a blind law student, sought shared housing but was refused a room by a homeowner who stated the accommodation was unsuitable due to his disability.

The applicant challenged the constitutionality of section 21(1) of the Human Rights Code, which exempts shared owner-occupied housing from discrimination protections.

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario dismissed the application, finding no evidence of disproportionate impact under section 15(1) of the Charter due to a lack of disaggregated statistical data.

On judicial review, the Divisional Court held the HRTO erred by requiring statistical evidence where none existed and failing to draw appropriate inferences from qualitative expert evidence.

The court remitted the matter to the HRTO to complete the Charter analysis.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) appealed a Superior Court decision denying its leave to intervene as a friend of the court in an application challenging the constitutionality of municipal by-laws related to encampments.

The Court of Appeal quashed the appeal for want of jurisdiction, holding that an order denying leave to intervene as a friend of the court is an interlocutory order, not a final order, and therefore not appealable to the Court of Appeal under the Courts of Justice Act.

The court distinguished between party interventions (which may be final orders) and friend of the court interventions (which are interlocutory).