Insiya Ilyas Essajee

The Ontario Human Rights Commission sought leave to intervene in a pending motion for leave to appeal from a Divisional Court decision dismissing a Charter challenge to Ontario's sex education curriculum directive.

The OHRC argued it would make unique contributions by addressing the public interest dimension and alleged errors in the Divisional Court's discrimination analysis.

The motion judge dismissed the OHRC's request for intervener status on the motion for leave to appeal, finding that such interventions should be rare and extraordinary, and that the applicants were already capable of advancing these arguments.

The motion judge adjourned the OHRC's request for intervener status on any subsequent appeal.

The appellant School Board appealed a Divisional Court decision upholding the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario's finding that it failed to accommodate the respondent employee's disability and ordering her reinstatement.

The employee had developed a psychiatric impairment due to the stress of her position and was unable to return to her previous role.

The Tribunal found that the School Board failed to accommodate her by not placing her in available alternative positions.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding the Tribunal's decisions on both liability and the remedy of reinstatement were reasonable and entitled to deference.

The respondents requested permission to use a court reporter to record the upcoming hearing and sought a waiver of the requirement to provide transcripts to the other parties and the Tribunal due to cost.

The Tribunal allowed the use of a court reporter but denied the waiver, ordering the respondents to provide transcripts at their own expense prior to final argument to ensure all parties have access to the most accurate record.

The Tribunal also noted the respondents' lack of objection to one expert witness and deferred a decision on their objection to another expert witness until the hearing.

The applicant requested an adjournment of the scheduled hearing dates after discharging his previous counsel and retaining new counsel shortly before the hearing.

The Tribunal denied the request, noting that this was the applicant's second adjournment request and that retaining new counsel who is unavailable for scheduled dates does not constitute an exceptional circumstance justifying an adjournment.

The Tribunal directed the hearing to proceed as scheduled, with medical evidence deferred pending a formal request for disclosure of clinical notes.

The applicant, a young African-Canadian man, filed a human rights complaint alleging racial profiling after being stopped by police.

The Commission and the police settled the complaint, agreeing to a limited data collection project, but the applicant sought broader systemic remedies, including data collection for pedestrian stops.

The Human Rights Tribunal dismissed the applicant's request without a full hearing, deferring to the settlement and finding it lacked jurisdiction to order remedies for pedestrian stops.

On judicial review, the Divisional Court set aside the Tribunal's decision, holding that while the summary process was procedurally fair, the Tribunal's conclusions on jurisdiction and its complete deference to the Commission's settlement were unreasonable.

The intervenor, the Ontario Human Rights Commission, requested a reconsideration of a Tribunal decision which dismissed an application brought by an estate.

The original decision found that an estate is not a person capable of experiencing discrimination and therefore lacked standing to file an application regarding acts that occurred after the deceased's death.

The Tribunal denied the reconsideration request, finding that the original decision was not in conflict with established jurisprudence and did not import a new threshold requirement for accessing the human rights system.

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario considered the claims of 17 individuals alleging that the special diet allowance schedule under Ontario's social assistance system discriminated against them based on disability.

The claimants argued that the schedule failed to fund or underfunded special diets for 11 different medical conditions.

Applying the four-part test from Ball v. Ontario, the Tribunal dismissed the majority of the claims, finding that the claimants failed to establish that their conditions required modifications to a regular healthy diet, that the diets led to additional costs, or that the medical community generally recognized the need for such diets.

However, the Tribunal allowed the claims for Prader-Willi syndrome and unintended weight loss due to renal failure, as the respondent conceded these conditions met the Ball test.

The Tribunal ordered retroactive benefits for these two conditions, rejecting the respondent's argument that the recognition of Prader-Willi syndrome constituted a substantial change in the law that would preclude retroactive relief.