Repeal section 13 of Ontario’s Human Rights Code

To attorneygeneral@ontario.ca,

The Honourable Doug Downey
Attorney General of Ontario
Ministry of the Attorney General
McMurtry-Scott Building
720 Bay Street, 11th Floor
Toronto, Ontario, M7A 2S9

RE: Repeal section 13 of Ontario’s Human Rights Code

Dear Attorney General Downey,

I am writing to urge your government to repeal section 13 of Ontario’s Human Rights Code, R.S.O. 1990, c H.19, which grants Ontario’s human rights system authority to regulate certain forms of lawful speech and political expression.

Ontario’s Human Rights Code plays an important role in prohibiting genuine discrimination in employment, housing, public services, and other areas of civic life. These protections are already addressed throughout Part I of the Code, which prohibits discriminatory conduct in employment, accommodation, contracts, services, and related matters.

Section 13 is fundamentally different. It provides that a right under Part I is infringed where a person publishes or displays before the public any notice, sign, symbol, emblem, or similar representation that indicates an intention to infringe a right under Part I, or is intended to incite the infringement of such a right.

Unlike the rest of Ontario’s Human Rights Code, section 13 regulates expressive activity rather than discriminatory conduct itself. While Ontario’s provision is narrower than similar provisions found in some other provinces, it nonetheless permits complaints based on public expression and political speech. In recent years, similar provisions elsewhere in Canada have increasingly been used to investigate and penalize citizens for expressing lawful opinions on controversial social and political issues. In one recent case in British Columbia, the BC Human Rights Tribunal ordered former Chilliwack School Board Trustee Barry Neufeld to pay $750,000 over comments criticizing gender ideology policies in schools.

Repealing section 13 would not legalize discrimination. Ontario’s Human Rights Code would continue to prohibit discrimination in employment, housing, services, and public accommodations. Nor would repeal affect the Criminal Code prohibition on the wilful promotion of hatred under section 319.

I therefore urge you and all Members of Provincial Parliament to support legislation repealing section 13 of Ontario’s Human Rights Code.

Ontario should lead the way in protecting both genuine human rights and freedom of expression.

Sincerely,