PUTTING PEOPLE AND THEIR RIGHTS AT THE CENTRE:
Building Human Rights Accountability
Ontario Human Rights Commission Strategic Plan 2017 – 2022
Extensive conversations with nearly 300 people representing over 80 organizations have strengthened the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s (OHRC) resolve to promote and enforce human rights, engage in relationships that embody dignity and respect, and create a culture of human rights compliance and accountability across Ontario.
I am consistently amazed by how many people are personally invested in the work of the OHRC and care deeply about our success. They encouraged us to use our unique mandate to address anti-Black racism, Indigenous reconciliation, Islamophobia, the rights of children and youth, and persistent discrimination in employment and in the criminal justice system. They implored us to get at the root of much of today’s inequality: the ever-present risk of poverty faced by people with disabilities, people with diverse gender identities, and many others the Code is meant to protect.
Throughout our discussions, another broader theme also emerged: a sense that we are at a crossroads, a point where our society must make crucial decisions that will have far-reaching consequences for the human rights landscape going forward. As our society becomes even more diverse, the lived reality of people with privilege and power is easily contrasted against people who continually find themselves on the margins. In 2016, the voices of people who were once silent (or silenced) have grown louder in their demands for a most just society – and not tomorrow or sometime in the future, but today.
The central question, then, is whether human rights are the starting point to inform all public policy choices, or whether they are dispensable when they conflict with the majority’s will or with other competing priorities or values. The answer is at the heart of broader social movements focused on anti-Black racism, Indigenous reconciliation, Trans rights, workers’ rights, rights for people with disabilities, and sexual violence and women’s equality.
This Strategic Plan positions the OHRC in this crossroads moment: as a leadership voice on critical and emerging human rights issues, and as an institution that will use its functions and powers to make sure that people and their human rights are at the very centre of the decisions we make as a society.
The OHRC’s role is to expose and address forms of discrimination that are rarely subject to adjudication. This plan reflects my personal belief that, when dealing with systemic discrimination, progress is more likely if we isolate social systems where even small shifts in the landscape can have big ripple-out effects, and then use the breadth of our functions and powers to effect change in those priority areas. The laws of physics apply: the most stagnant and complex systems often need the biggest push if we want to see progress towards substantive equality.
Through a focus on reconciliation, the criminal justice system, poverty and education, we will address the discriminatory impacts of broader systems of colonialism, state power, resource allocation, and enculturation – which cause nearly all Code-protected groups, especially those with intersectional identities, to be marginalized and to have their disadvantage exacerbated or perpetuated.
Overwhelmingly, though, people told us that they were less concerned about what we chose to prioritize and more interested in how we did our work to make sure that the OHRC has a measurable impact on the human rights landscape. As one Commissioner so aptly put it, “a rising tide lifts all boats.”
So, beyond our substantive areas of focus, we will aspire to be transformative in our approach. We will focus on our people, our community, developing evidence-informed approaches, and delivering practical advice. Perhaps most importantly, we will continue to be a leadership voice across the full range of issues that fall within our mandate, and will retain capacity to address critical and emerging issues across all Code grounds and social areas. These foundational strengths are the core – they will allow us to grow, learn, reflect and work towards our vision of an inclusive society where everyone takes responsibility for promoting and protecting human rights; where everyone is valued and treated with equal dignity and respect; and where everyone’s human rights are a lived reality.
Our society has come to a fork in the road: a moment where decisions must be made about the core values that should drive social policy into the future. In this pivotal moment, my conversations across the province confirm that Ontarians have big ideas and favour bold approaches to address persistent human rights problems. The OHRC must engage the public and empower people as accountability agents. We know that our work has the most impact when we amplify the voices of the most marginalized people, and when the public echoes our human rights message and demands action. Together we can create a society where promoting, protecting and being accountable for human rights is everyone’s responsibility.
Sincerely,
Renu Mandhane, B.A., J.D., LL.M.
Chief Commissioner
Ontario Human Rights Commission
The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) was established as an arm’s length agency of government in 1961 to prevent discrimination and to promote and advance human rights in Ontario. The OHRC is one pillar of Ontario’s human rights system, alongside the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) and the Human Rights Legal Support Centre (HRLSC).
Under the Ontario Human Rights Code (the Code), the OHRC has a broad statutory mandate to promote, protect and advance respect for human rights, and to identify and promote the elimination of discriminatory practices. The OHRC works in many different ways to fulfill this mandate, including through education, policy development, public inquiries and litigation.
Ontario’s human rights system – and the OHRC’s particular role within it – is unique. Fundamentally, the OHRC is tasked with challenging persistent inequality in society. Our mandate places a particular emphasis on addressing systemic discrimination, which refers to patterns of behaviour, policies and/or practices that are part of the social or administrative structure of an organization, and that create or perpetuate a position of relative disadvantage for persons protected by the Code.
In many ways, Ontario’s statutory model recognizes the complexity of the real, intersecting dynamics and cross-cutting systems that drive and sustain systemic discrimination. It recognizes that multi-dimensional strategies, beyond litigating individual cases, are necessary to unseat entrenched systems and behaviours that perpetuate discrimination. The OHRC’s statutory mandate empowers us to pursue truly systemic solutions in the public interest.
Because the OHRC’s mandate is unique, it is important for us to exercise that mandate in the most effective and efficient way. This requires us to not only monitor and respond to critical and emerging issues, but to also consider those priority areas where proactive and sustained work can have an impact in the current climate.
It is almost a decade since Ontario shifted to a direct-access system for human rights adjudication and the OHRC received a renewed mandate to focus on systemic discrimination. We have learned a lot since 2008. With that knowledge, we are now well positioned to embark on a bold new vision for our work that will continue to deliver real systemic change to make human rights a practical reality. We are also well positioned to build a robust culture of human rights accountability.
Shifting entrenched systemic discrimination takes time and sustained effort. While we have had many successes over the past few years, we know more needs to be done to achieve human rights for all. Following many months of broad community consultation and reflection, we recognize that, as a society, we are at a crossroads.
The Truth and Reconciliation Commission process and its Final Report have marked a historic turning point, spurring our collective efforts towards reconciliation with First Nations, Inuit and Métis peoples (Indigenous peoples) to address the legacy of colonialism. Momentum and visibility are also growing through movements focused on anti-Black racism, disability rights, Trans rights, the rights of precariously employed workers, sexual violence and women’s equality. At the same time, globally and domestically, we are seeing the rise of overt racism, violence and xenophobia. Society is becoming increasingly polarized.
In light of our statutory mandate and unique ability to straddle the community and government, the OHRC is uniquely positioned to play an important role in bringing communities together to safeguard human rights. In putting forward a new set of strategic focus areas, we have an opportunity to address critical human rights issues, particularly those that are affecting the most marginalized and vulnerable members of our communities. And we are excited to bring regular community engagement more closely into our work, to make sure that we understand and reflect the lived-experience of the diverse people of Ontario in everything we do.
Today, we commit to a new chapter in this work and we are pleased to share our Strategic Plan. The decisions we have made are deliberate and the actions we will take over the next five years are intended to effect systemic change and usher in a new era of human rights in Ontario.
We envision an inclusive society where everyone takes responsibility for promoting and protecting human rights; where everyone is valued and treated with equal dignity and respect; and where everyone’s human rights are a lived reality.
We believe that the way to realize this vision is to activate and engage the full range of our functions and powers under the Ontario Human Rights Code and our institutional expertise to dismantle the complex, intersecting dynamics and conditions that foster and perpetuate systemic discrimination.
Our mission is to promote and enforce human rights, to engage in relationships that embody the principles of dignity and respect, and to create a culture of human rights compliance and accountability. We act as a driver for social change based on principles of substantive equality. We accomplish our mission by exposing, challenging and ending entrenched and widespread structures and systems of discrimination through education, policy development, public inquiries and litigation.
We believe that lasting and systemic change requires sustained and courageous action informed by our foundational values.
We commit to embodying the following in all of our work and ways of working:
As an independent agency of government, the OHRC is entrusted by the public to provide leadership in promoting and enforcing human rights in Ontario. We are guided by the Code in all of our work. To fulfill this mandate, the OHRC will continue to provide timely and principled guidance on critical and emerging human rights issues. However, shifting systemic discrimination also requires proactive planning and long-term, sustained and focused effort. At this moment, we recognize that there are critical human rights issues to address and opportunities to seize, to make effective systemic change that will affect multiple communities and areas of social interaction.
This Strategic Plan provides the framework for 2017 – 2022. It lays out our proactive areas of focus for the coming five years. It is geared toward achieving results and creating an environment that encourages and supports a commitment to human rights accountability in our community. This Strategic Plan allows for developing, each year, a focused list of valid, necessary and measurable actions that advance the OHRC towards results. Internally, it provides the basis for more detailed operational plans to make sure that all organizational activities connect to results.
The OHRC’s statutory role will always require it to engage with the breadth of its mandate that encompasses all protected grounds and social areas under the Code. In setting out this Strategic Plan, the OHRC will not, and cannot, abandon that broad statutory mandate. The OHRC will reserve capacity to ensure that it continues to exercise its leadership voice to foster understanding of critical and emerging human rights issues, to support others by amplifying their concerns, and to educate. However, this Strategic Plan signals a shift towards planned action and a results-oriented approach. In all parts of our mandate, we will be strategic and highly focused in determining how we exercise the range of our functions and powers. Our foundational strengths, which are highlighted in this Plan, will inform how we do all of our work.
We will concentrate our proactive efforts on four strategic focus areas:
We believe that having an impact in these substantive areas of focus requires that we recognize and reinforce our foundational strengths.
Over the coming five years, the OHRC will focus on building and improving capacity in the following five areas.
The OHRC will embody human rights by engaging in and sustaining trusting relationships with First Nations, Métis and Inuit communities and groups. These relationships will be built on dignity and respect, and on working to advance reconciliation and substantive equality. We will contribute to nation-wide efforts that recognize the enduring impact of colonialism on Indigenous peoples. We will work in collaboration to support Indigenous communities as they determine and advance their own human rights goals and priorities.
We believe a commitment to reconciliation and the vital process of healing, empowerment and self-governance for Indigenous peoples is of utmost importance and a priority for our collective future.
The OHRC has an important role to play in building a vision of human rights that reconciles with Indigenous cultures, laws, treaties, and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and in addressing critical human rights issues affecting Indigenous communities.
Over the coming five years, we will establish and strengthen our relationships with Indigenous communities and groups; recognize colonialism, and address systemic racism, discrimination and inequality.
We will work towards the following results:
We will do this by:
The OHRC will enforce human rights and reduce systemic discrimination and inequality experienced by people who are among the most marginalized in our communities by seeking human rights accountability in the criminal justice system.
Within Ontario’s human rights framework, the OHRC has unique powers to effect systemic change. Over the coming five years, we will engage the full range of our functions and powers to address human rights issues within the systems that powerfully affect communities’ experiences of marginalization. We will pursue a particular focus on Ontario’s criminal justice system (including pipelines to criminalization, police, courts, corrections and community release).
Recognizing the significant over-representation and marginalization experienced by Indigenous peoples within these systems, this priority intersects with and will inform our priority to advance reconciliation with and equality for Indigenous communities. This priority equally recognizes and respects the community’s deep concern and urgent call for action to address systemic anti-Black racism, Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism, and to acknowledge the disproportionate harm that criminalization has on people with disabilities.
It will also allow us to address discrimination and inequality faced by many groups, including sexual violence survivors, community members of diverse sexual orientations, gender identities and gender expressions, and immigrants, migrants, refugees and other people with insecure status within these systems.
We will work towards the following results:
We will do this by:
Since the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948, the right to an adequate standard of living, including food, clothing and housing, has been recognized as a fundamental human right. While the Code specifically prohibits discrimination on the ground of “receipt of public assistance” in housing, it is important to uncover and understand the ways that poverty and systemic discrimination are intertwined in all social areas covered by the Code. The OHRC will advance the field of human rights law by making clear how systemic discrimination causes and sustains poverty and social conditions such as homelessness and hunger. We will also make clear how systemic discrimination disproportionately affects people experiencing poverty.
Poverty and systemic discrimination are inter-connected. Poverty exacerbates marginalization and undermines peoples’ ability to redress discrimination. Poverty undermines human rights security in all social areas including housing, access to health care and other social services, access to employment, and experiences of deeply precarious employment.
Code-protected communities disproportionately experience poverty, with particular dynamics of marginalization facing persons living with disabilities, Indigenous peoples, women, older persons, children and youth, transgender people and racialized communities. The OHRC will shed light on the connection between poverty, homelessness, hunger and systemic discrimination to promote human rights and substantive equality.
We will work towards the following results:
We will do this by:
The OHRC will promote and strengthen a human rights culture in Ontario that encompasses human rights entitlements and responsibilities, with a special focus on educating children and youth and addressing systemic discrimination in the education system.
Recent events in Canada and around the world have raised serious concern and fear about growing racism, Islamophobia, homophobia and general xenophobia. Over the coming five years, the OHRC will address these challenges head on by fostering a culture across the province that puts human rights at its core. We will do this by focusing on the education of children and youth.
We want to create an environment where all children can reach their full potential. We will approach this by working to ensure that children and youth are educated about their human rights and responsibilities. We will strive to eliminate systemic discrimination that children and youth face in education systems so that, in this formative system, they have a lived experience where human rights are respected in practice.
We will work towards the following results:
We will do this by:
There are two critical elements that together provide the framework for the Strategic Plan: substantive strategic focus areas and foundational strengths. There is an interdependent relationship between these two elements and together they can drive the OHRC towards its vision.
Foundational strengths form the basis for the OHRC to launch its strategic focus areas. In many ways, these strengths are informed by and reflect our values. They are the critical factors to achieving success at a daily operational level and also to achieving substantive results. Over the coming five years, the OHRC will focus on building and improving capacity in the following five areas, and monitoring and measuring our progress.
The OHRC’s ability and willingness to communicate broadly, clearly and in a timely way is critical to providing effective leadership that advances the realization of human rights. Our communications must be principled and accessible. Over the next five years, we will clearly communicate why and how peoples’ experiences are human rights issues. We will speak out about the human toll and cost of discrimination. We will retain capacity to respond strategically to critical and emerging issues across all Code grounds and social areas. We will provide human rights solutions.
We will do this by:
Our staff and leaders are integral to the success of the OHRC. Over the next five years, we will focus on continuing to strengthen our workplace culture and environment. We will enhance personal and organizational well-being and connectedness.
We will do this by:
The OHRC relies on our relationships with a broad range of individuals, groups, organizations and institutions, including government, NGOs, community groups and human rights duty holders (for example, employers, housing and other service providers). We will continue to strengthen our relationships with the other two pillars of the human rights system, the Human Rights Legal Support Centre (HRLSC) and Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO). The success of this Strategic Plan is not possible without engaging our collective commitment and expertise.
We will do this by:
The OHRC will situate itself to be a trusted and credible authority on human rights issues in Ontario. We believe in evidence-informed approaches to understand the state of human rights and systemic discrimination in Ontario and to evaluate our own work. People’s stories and lived-experiences are an important part of this accountability. We recognize the need to collect both quantitative and qualitative data and to be able to show our relevance and the impact of our work. Over the coming five years, we will promote an environment that champions and rewards continuous learning and evaluation.
We will do this by:
We recognize that our policies are principled and authoritative and provide the vital analysis required to promote and enforce human rights. We also recognize that it is critical for human rights policies to be translated into behaviours that meet human rights obligations. Over the coming five years, we will strive to ensure that policy is translated into practice by duty holders in a way that delivers a lived experience of human rights.
We will do this by:
The Ontario Human Rights Commission
Strategic Plan 2017 – 2022
519 Community Centre
Aboriginal Legal Services of Toronto
Aboriginal Women’s Roundtable
Access Alliance Multicultural Health
Advocacy Centre for Tenants of Ontario
Advocacy Centre for the Elderly
African Canadian Legal Clinic
Arab Canadian Lawyers Association
ARCH Disability Law Centre
Barbra Schlifer Commemorative Clinic
Canada Without Poverty
Canadian Arab Institute
Canadian Association of Black Lawyers
Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies
Canadian Association of Statutory Human Rights Agencies
Canadian Civil Liberties Association
Canadian Federation of Independent Business
Canadian Hearing Society
Canadian Human Rights Commission
Canadian Mental Health Association-Ontario
Canadian Multi-faith Federation
Canadian Women's Foundation
Can-Am Indian Friendship Centre
Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation
Centre for Independent Living in Toronto
Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs
Centre francophone de Toronto
Chiefs of Ontario
City of Thunder Bay – Aboriginal Liaison
Colour of Poverty Campaign
Council of Agencies Serving South Asians
Egale Canada
Empowerment Council
Equal Pay Coalition
Ministry of Education – Equity and Inclusive Education
First Nations Child and Family Caring Society
Griffin Centre
HIV & AIDS Legal Clinic Ontario (HALCO)
Human Resources Professionals Association
Human Rights Legal Support Centre
Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario
Income Security Advocacy Centre
Justicia for Migrant Workers
L’Association des juristes d’expression française de l’Ontario (AJEFO) (Association of French Speaking Jurists of Ontario)
La Passerelle-IDE
Legal Aid Ontario
MaRS Discovery District – Studio Y
McMaster University (Human Rights & Equity Services)
Metro Toronto Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic
Ministry of the Attorney General – Aboriginal Justice Division
Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation
National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM)
Native Women's Association of Canada
No One is Illegal
Odawa Indigenous Friendship Centre
Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner
Office of the Ontario Ombudsman
Office of the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth – Youth Amplifiers
Ontario Bar Association
Ontario Community Legal Clinics
Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI)
Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres
Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres – Aboriginal Youth Council
Ontario Federation of Labour
Ontario Native Women's Association
Ontario Pay Equity Commission
Ontario Public Service Disability Advisory Council
Ontario Public Service Pride Network
Pearl Eliadis
Senior Equity Officers Resource Group
Social Justice Tribunals of Ontario
Trans Coalition Project – Toronto Trans Alliance
Trans Lobby Group
Tungasuvvingat Inuit
University of Toronto – Anti-Racism & Cultural Diversity Officer
Urban Alliance on Race Relations
Women's College Research Institute
Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund
Ontario Human Rights Commission - Commissioners
Ontario Human Rights Commission - Staff