Selwyn A. Pieters

The applicant requested an adjournment of the scheduled hearing dates due to injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident.

The applicant provided a physician's note confirming his inability to attend.

The Tribunal granted the adjournment, finding that the illness of a party constituted an exceptional circumstance warranting an adjournment under its Practice Direction.

Permanent residents seeking Canadian citizenship challenged the constitutionality of the statutory citizenship oath requiring allegiance to the Queen under the Citizenship Act.

The applicants alleged that the oath infringed freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and equality rights under ss. 2(a), 2(b), and 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The court held that the oath constitutes compelled expression and therefore prima facie infringes s. 2(b), but concluded the infringement is justified under s. 1 as a reasonable limit because the oath symbolizes commitment to Canada’s constitutional structure and rule of law.

The court further held that the oath does not violate freedom of religion or equality rights, emphasizing its secular and universal nature and the absence of discriminatory purpose or effect.

The respondent police officers brought a Request for an Order During Proceedings to be removed as individual respondents from a human rights application alleging racial profiling.

Applying the Persaud factors, the Tribunal removed one officer because the allegations against him had previously been dismissed for delay.

However, the Tribunal declined to remove the remaining two officers, finding that their individual conduct during the applicant's arrest remained a central issue in the proceeding.

The respondent police officers brought a request for an order during proceedings to strike portions of a human rights application on the basis of delay.

The applicant, who was a minor at the time of the alleged incidents of racial profiling in 2007 and 2008, argued that the limitation period under section 34 of the Human Rights Code should not begin to run until he turned 18, relying on common law principles and the Limitations Act, 2002.

The Tribunal held that the Limitations Act, 2002 does not apply to the Code, and that a minor's status is instead considered when assessing whether the delay was incurred in good faith under section 34(2).

The Tribunal found that the applicant failed to establish a good faith explanation for the delay, noting he was represented by counsel during the relevant period who had raised the issue of racial profiling in criminal proceedings.

The untimely allegations were dismissed.

A young person challenged a guilty plea entered for robbery with a handgun, alleging that late disclosure of investigating officer's notes constituted a breach of Charter rights under section 7.

The Crown conceded that the notes should have been disclosed with initial disclosure despite an ongoing Special Investigations Unit investigation.

The court found a marked and unacceptable departure from reasonable prosecution standards and awarded costs of $13,000 plus HST against the Crown as a remedy for the constitutional breach.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination in employment.

During the pleadings stage, the applicant filed a Request for Order during Proceedings seeking additional particulars and production of documents before filing his Reply.

The Tribunal denied the request for particulars, finding the respondents' Response was sufficiently detailed to allow for a meaningful Reply.

The Tribunal also denied the request for production as premature, noting that the Rules require disclosure only after a Notice of Confirmation of Hearing is issued.

The applicant sought reconsideration of a decision dismissing her human rights application against the union and its president.

The original decision found that blog posts by the union president, which criticized the applicant using sexist stereotypes, did not constitute workplace harassment under the Human Rights Code because they were protected by freedom of expression and association in the context of union-management relations.

The applicant and the intervening Ontario Human Rights Commission argued the Tribunal made fundamental errors in balancing these competing rights and denied procedural fairness.

The Tribunal dismissed the request for reconsideration, finding no conflict with established jurisprudence, no denial of procedural fairness, and no error in its balancing of the competing rights.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging racial profiling by police and a security guard.

The applicant sought to amend the application to add numerous new allegations based on documents obtained through Youth Court.

The Tribunal dismissed the request to amend, finding it would considerably expand the scope of the hearing and prejudice the respondents given the passage of time.

The Tribunal also determined that the untimely allegations in the original application did not form a 'series of incidents' with the timely allegations under section 34 of the Human Rights Code, as they were discrete events separated by a lengthy gap in time.

The Tribunal requested further submissions on whether the limitation period was tolled because the applicant was a minor at the time of the alleged incidents.

The applicant, a police officer, sought to amend her human rights application against the police services board and the police association to include detailed allegations of sexual harassment, a poisoned work environment, failure to accommodate, and reprisal, and to add a personal respondent.

The Tribunal allowed some amendments, including those relating to disability, reprisal, and failure to investigate, but denied amendments that substantially changed the nature of the original application, such as adding the personal respondent for historical sexual harassment allegations.

The Tribunal also directed a summary hearing to determine if the allegations against the police association and certain other allegations had a reasonable prospect of success.

The applicant, a manager at a provincial jail, alleged that the respondent union president discriminated against and harassed her by posting sexist comments about her on a union blog.

The Tribunal found that the blog posts did not constitute harassment 'in the workplace' under s. 5(2) of the Human Rights Code because the blog was directed at union members and not accessed at work.

The Tribunal also found no discrimination with respect to employment under s. 5(1), balancing the applicant's Code rights against the union's Charter rights to freedom of expression and association regarding labour-management issues.

The plaintiffs challenged the constitutionality of the Canadian citizenship oath under s. 24 of the Citizenship Act, alleging it infringed rights under ss. 2 and 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by compelling allegiance to the monarch.

After certification of the proposed class proceeding was denied and appeals were dismissed, the plaintiffs sought an order under s. 7 of the Class Proceedings Act, 1992 to continue the matter as an individual proceeding.

The defendant brought a motion to dismiss the action for delay.

The court held that although the litigation had progressed slowly, the delay was not intentional, contumelious, or such as to create a substantial risk that a fair trial would no longer be possible.

The motion to dismiss for delay was denied and the plaintiffs were permitted to continue the action individually seeking declaratory relief.

The respondent requested an adjournment on the morning of the scheduled hearing due to the sudden and unexpected illness of its counsel.

The applicant opposed the request.

The Tribunal granted the adjournment, noting the sudden illness, and ordered that the matter be rescheduled as soon as possible on a peremptory basis to the respondent.

The applicant alleged a poisoned work environment based on race, colour, and ethnic origin.

The respondent employer requested orders to dismiss allegations regarding two incidents for delay and to exclude proposed similar fact evidence from two witnesses.

The Tribunal struck the first incident as it occurred more than one year prior to the application and did not form part of a series, but allowed the second incident.

The Tribunal also excluded the proposed similar fact evidence, finding its prejudicial effect exceeded its probative value given the temporal disconnect from the main allegations.

The applicant, a Black high school student, alleged racial discrimination and reprisal against a shopping mall owner after two incidents involving security guards.

In the first incident, the applicant was asked to clean up garbage at a food court table, refused, swore at the guard, and was verbally banned from the mall.

In the second incident, the applicant returned to the mall, was arrested for trespassing, and escorted to the security office.

The Tribunal found that the security guards' actions were motivated by the applicant's behaviour and the enforcement of the trespass ban, not by his race, colour, or ethnic origin.

The application was dismissed.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging racial profiling by police officers across several incidents between 2007 and 2010.

The respondent officers brought a request to dismiss the allegations relating to the 2007 and 2008 incidents, arguing they fell outside the one-year limitation period under section 34 of the Human Rights Code.

The Tribunal denied the request as premature, finding it could not determine whether the incidents constituted a series of events without the benefit of documents the applicant was seeking to obtain through ongoing Youth Criminal Justice Act proceedings.

The Ministry of Correctional Services and a non-party intervenor requested a publication ban on portions of an investigation report and minutes of settlement produced in the proceeding, citing privacy and the integrity of confidential settlements.

The Tribunal denied the requests, finding insufficient evidence to override the strong public interest in open hearings and the need for transparent decision-making.

However, the Tribunal granted a request to redact the home addresses of Ministry personnel from the exhibits due to safety concerns.

The applicant sought production of records relating to allegations of discrimination at a correctional facility.

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario ordered the respondent to produce redacted inmate records, finding them arguably relevant to the application.

However, the Tribunal denied the production of workplace discrimination and grievance records involving staff, as the applicant failed to establish a nexus to the issues in dispute.

The Tribunal also dismissed the respondent's request to bifurcate the hearing into individual and systemic phases, concluding it would not be an efficient way to proceed.

The applicant alleged racial discrimination in his treatment while in detention at Maplehurst Correctional Centre, specifically regarding disciplinary actions and solitary confinement for alleged misconduct.

The respondent raised a jurisdictional objection, arguing that the Superintendent's decisions in misconduct hearings are statutory decision-making functions and not a 'service' under the Human Rights Code.

The Tribunal held that the Superintendent's function is overwhelmingly administrative rather than adjudicative, and therefore the misconduct decisions are 'services' within the meaning of the Code and are not immune from Code review.

The respondent's request for partial dismissal was denied.

The applicant, an inmate at a provincial jail, alleged discrimination on the basis of race and related grounds.

In this interim decision, the Tribunal addressed several preliminary issues.

The Tribunal denied the applicant's request for a publication ban regarding his own identity, finding insufficient evidence that it would protect him from reprisal, but granted anonymization for his incarcerated witnesses.

The Tribunal denied the applicant's request for disclosure of potential inmate witnesses' names.

The Tribunal granted the applicant's request for disclosure of similar-fact evidence regarding other racial discrimination complaints at the facility, subject to an in camera review by the adjudicator to balance probative value against privacy interests.

Finally, the Tribunal denied the respondent's motion to strike the applicant's Statement of Fact and Remedies, instead permitting the applicant to file an amended Application.

The Applicant alleged that the employer breached a Memorandum of Settlement by placing him on a tracking protocol for respondents in substantiated incidents under the Workplace Discrimination and Harassment Policy (WDHP).

The Applicant argued this amounted to a disciplinary measure incompatible with the settlement.

The employer maintained it was complying with its obligations under an agreement with OPSEU and that the tracking protocol was not disciplinary.

The Public Service Grievance Board found that the settlement did not reference the tracking protocol and that placement on the protocol was not a disciplinary measure.

The application for a declaration of breach was dismissed.