Sunil Gurmukh

The applicant sought judicial review of an interim decision by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, which held it lacked jurisdiction to hear a stand-alone Charter challenge regarding a Ministry of Transportation policy.

Before the judicial review was heard, the applicant succeeded on his Human Rights Code claim, obtained his driver's licence, and the Ministry revised the impugned policy.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application for judicial review on the basis of mootness, declining to exercise its discretion to hear the case as there was no longer an adversarial context and the issue was not evasive of review.

The applicant alleged racial discrimination by the Toronto Police Service.

In this interim decision, the Tribunal addressed three requests for orders: the respondents' request to bifurcate the hearing, the applicant's request for CCTV footage from the Toronto Community Housing Corporation, and the OHRC's request for production of various police records.

The Tribunal granted the bifurcation request, ordering the hearing to proceed in three stages.

The applicant's request for CCTV footage was dismissed because the footage no longer existed.

The OHRC's requests for production were partially granted; however, the Tribunal found that section 95 of the Police Services Act prevented the disclosure of complaints made under Part V of that Act.

The applicant, a man with a severe intellectual disability, filed a human rights application alleging that the regulatory cap on nursing services discriminated against him by denying funding for a medically necessary fifth daily catheterization.

After the application was filed, the regulation was amended to increase the cap, meeting the applicant's current needs.

The respondent requested that the application be dismissed for mootness.

The Tribunal denied the request, finding that a live controversy remained regarding the period the applicant was subject to the old cap and any potential remedies.

However, the Tribunal held that the applicant lacked standing to challenge the amended regulation, as he was no longer adversely affected by it and could not bring a public interest application on behalf of others.

The Tribunal also declined to dismiss the application summarily on the basis that damages might not be available, finding such a determination premature.

The applicant sought reconsideration of a decision dismissing his human rights application against the respondent university for having no reasonable prospect of success.

The applicant alleged the university failed to accommodate his post-concussion syndrome during a comprehensive exam.

The Tribunal denied the request for reconsideration, finding that the original adjudicator did not depart from established jurisprudence when she concluded the applicant failed to provide sufficient medical evidence linking the adverse impact he experienced to his disability.

The applicant requested to amend the application to name Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Ontario as the respondent instead of the Minister of Health and Long-Term Care.

The Tribunal granted the amendment.

The Tribunal also considered two intervention requests.

The Canadian Association for Community Living, Community Living Ontario and People First of Canada were granted limited intervenor status to call evidence on the context of community living and deinstitutionalization.

The Bazelon Centre for Mental Health Law's request to intervene to provide a comparative perspective on U.S. anti-discrimination laws was denied, as the parties could provide this assistance themselves.

The applicants sought to challenge the Ontario Human Rights Commission Policy and Guidelines on Racism and Racial Discrimination before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

The Tribunal found it lacked jurisdiction to hear a free-standing challenge to the policy.

The Divisional Court dismissed the application for judicial review, confirming that the Tribunal, as a creature of statute, only has the jurisdiction granted by the legislature and that such a challenge must be pursued by way of a court application.

The applicant, a First Nations constable, sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal decision dismissing his complaint that his suspension and termination by the OPP Commissioner were discriminatory and acts of reprisal.

The applicant had been terminated after making public comments criticizing the OPP.

The Divisional Court upheld the Tribunal's findings that the exclusion of First Nations constables from the procedural protections of the Police Services Act was not discriminatory, but rather respected First Nations self-government.

The Court also upheld the finding that the termination was not a reprisal under the Human Rights Code, as the applicant's public comments were not an assertion of human rights.

A related application by the First Nation Council alleging a denial of natural justice was also dismissed.

The applicants, who identify as atheists, alleged that the respondent school board discriminated against them on the basis of creed by permitting only the Gideons to distribute religious literature (the New Testament) to grade five students.

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario held that atheism falls within the definition of 'creed' under the Human Rights Code.

The Tribunal found that the board's original policy, which allowed only one religious group to distribute texts, was discriminatory.

Furthermore, the Tribunal concluded that the board's revised policy, which ostensibly allowed other groups to distribute materials but was applied inconsistently and restrictively, also failed to comply with the Code.

The Tribunal ordered the board to cease distributing religious publications unless it developed a new, non-discriminatory policy.

The respondents requested that the human rights applications be dismissed under section 45.1 of the Human Rights Code on the basis that the applicants' prior public complaints under the Police Services Act appropriately dealt with the substance of the applications.

The Tribunal considered the Supreme Court of Canada's decisions in Figliola and Penner.

The Tribunal held that section 45.1 should not be interpreted to bar a Code application where doing so would result in an affront to basic principles of fairness.

Given the lack of personal remedies in the police disciplinary process and the broader policy implications, the Tribunal found it would be unfair to preclude the applicants from pursuing their human rights claims.

The respondents' requests to dismiss the applications were denied, and the applications were allowed to proceed.

The applicant, an Assistant Crown Attorney, filed a human rights application alleging discrimination based on race and colour regarding his arrest and strip search by Toronto Police Service officers, and later amended it to include reprisal allegations against the Toronto Police Association (TPA).

The applicant also commenced civil actions against the respondents based on the same facts.

The respondents brought requests to dismiss the application under section 34(11) of the Human Rights Code or to defer it pending the civil proceedings.

The Tribunal dismissed the application against the TPA, finding that the civil claim for defamation incorporated a remedial claim for reprisal that was indistinguishable from the human rights application.

The Tribunal declined to dismiss the application against the TPS respondents under section 34(11) because the civil claim relied on the Charter rather than the Code, but deferred the application pending the conclusion of the civil proceeding to avoid duplicative litigation.

The Tribunal also declined to dismiss the application as an abuse of process for the applicant's failure to comply with directions.

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 applicants, an atheist father and his daughter, brought human rights applications alleging that the respondent school board's policies regarding the distribution of religious publications in schools discriminated on the basis of creed.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association sought leave to intervene.

The Tribunal granted the Commission leave to intervene and make an opening statement.

The CCLA was granted leave to intervene, but its participation was limited to submissions on how Charter values should inform the interpretation of the Code, as the Tribunal declined to allow the CCLA to introduce new constitutional issues not raised by the applicants.

The complainant, a young black man, alleged discrimination on the basis of colour, ethnic origin, and race in respect of policing services after being followed home and held at gunpoint by a police officer investigating a gun call.

The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario found that the investigating officer's decision to single out the complainant was based in part on racial profiling, as the officer lacked sufficient reliable information to justify the stop.

The Tribunal substantiated the complaint against the investigating officer and the Toronto Police Services Board, awarding $40,000 in damages for injury to dignity, feelings, and self-respect.

The complaint against the other responding officers was dismissed, as their actions were found to be a response to the exigencies of the situation created by the initial officer.

The applicants brought three human rights applications against the respondents.

The respondents requested the dismissal of certain allegations based on delay, and the applicants requested the consolidation of all three applications.

The Tribunal dismissed the allegations relating to an October 2007 incident due to unexplained delay, but allowed the allegations relating to a March 2009 incident to proceed as the delay was incurred in good faith while pursuing a Police Services Act complaint.

The Tribunal declined to consolidate the older transitional application with the newer section 34 applications due to the temporal gap and different stages of the proceedings, but ordered the two section 34 applications to be consolidated.