Asafo Addai v. City of Toronto, 2010 HRTO 2187

HUMAN RIGHTS TRIBUNAL OF ONTARIO

B E T W E E N:

Asafo Addai

Applicant

-and-

City of Toronto

Respondent

Interim DECISION

Adjudicator: Leslie Reaume

Date: November 3, 2010

Citation: 2010 HRTO 2187

Indexed as: Addai v. Toronto (City)

APPEARANCES

Asafo Addai, Applicant ) Peter Rosenthal ) Counsel

City of Toronto, Respondent ) Antonella Ceddia, ) Counsel )

1This Interim Decision relates to a Request for Order filed by the applicant requesting that the Tribunal order the respondent to produce the following:

a) List by licence number of all holders of taxicab licences as of April 2010;

b) The names of all directors and shareholders of corporate holders of standard licences in 1998 and in 2010, listed by licence number;

c) Photographs of all holders of Ambassador licences, holders of standard licences in 1998, and holders of standard licences in 2010 with the licence number and name correlated with each photograph.

d) Photographs, of those for whom they are available, of the directors and shareholders of standard licences in 1998 and in 2010, correlated to the names of the individuals and the licence numbers.

e) For any of the directors or shareholders referred to above for whom photographs are not available, copies of any licence applications for those individuals that were filed in 1998 and prior.

2The respondent agreed to produce the information sought in sub-paragraph (a).

3At the hearing of October 29, 2010, I gave the following oral ruling:

1. We are all agreed that the corporation holds the licence. We are similarly agreed that a corporation does not itself have a race. This does not mean that an organization cannot advance a human rights claim on its own behalf on the basis of a prohibited ground under the Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c.H.19, as amended (the Code), as is evidenced by the decision in Brillinger v. Brockie [1999] O.H.R.B.I.D. No.12. Mr. Rosenthal’s request is for information about the race and ethnicity of shareholders and directors who presumably benefit from the fact that the corporation holds the licence. But in the end, it is the corporation, a separate legal entity, which holds the licence.

2. Mr. Rosenthal is correct that the names of directors and shareholders of these corporations are publicly available, although at a prohibitive cost given the number of corporations at issue. However, even if these names were produced, all that can be said is that they are the directors and shareholders of a corporation which holds a licence. There are any number of reasons why a person of any ethnicity may become a director or shareholder of a corporation. We know nothing of their involvement in the acquisition of the licence, how they benefit by it, or how they came to be associated with the corporation. Those factors make the names and photos of directors and shareholders unreliable in relation to the purpose for which they have been sought.

3. I am not prepared, in the circumstances of this case, to look behind the corporate structure in order to determine the ethnicity of the directors and shareholders with a view to attributing that ethnicity to the licence holder, the corporation. Mr. Rosenthal’s request is therefore dismissed.

4. With respect to Mr. Rosenthal’s request for correlation of the names and photos which he has already received, that request is granted on the terms which were agreed to by the parties. Those terms are as follows:

(a) Only Mr. Rosenthal, any associate or law clerk at Mr. Rosenthal’s firm assisting him on this file, and any expert retained by Mr. Addai and upon whose opinion Mr. Addai will rely at the hearing, will have access to the information;

(b) The information is not to be disclosed, discussed, or shared with any person or organizations, other than those identified above, in any form, including its original form, summary form, or shorthand reference, with the exception of anonymized, non-identifiable statistical information;

(c) No person or organization shall rely on the information in any other proceeding, context, or forum;

(d) Mr. Rosenthal and his expert shall keep the information in a confidential location, in their offices, with all controls necessary to ensure its confidentiality;

(e) Mr. Rosenthal shall keep a written record of how many copies he has made of the information and for what purpose.

4A conference call will be held on November 10, 2010 at 4:30 to set dates for the continuation of the hearing.