What grounds are protected under the Ontario Human Rights Code?

The Code lists seventeen grounds: race, colour, ancestry, ethnic origin, place of origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status, disability, record of offences, and receipt of public assistance. Reprisal under section 8 and association under section 12 also give rise to claims.

What is the test for discrimination in Ontario?

Following Moore v British Columbia (Education), 2012 SCC 61, an applicant must show they have a characteristic protected by the Code, that they experienced an adverse impact, and that the protected characteristic was a factor in that adverse impact. Intent is not required.

What Is Protected in Ontario? The 17 Human Rights Code Grounds Explained

Q: Is a criminal record protected under the Ontario Human Rights Code?

Only in a limited way. The ground of record of offences covers a conviction for a provincial offence, or a federal offence for which a pardon or record suspension was granted and not revoked. A live, unpardoned criminal conviction is not covered, and the ground applies only in employment.

Q: Does the Ontario Human Rights Code cover unfair treatment in general?

No. The Code covers adverse treatment connected to a listed ground, in one of five settings: employment, services, housing, contracts, and membership in a union or vocational association. The ground does not have to be the only or main factor, but it must be a factor.

What does the Ontario Human Rights Code protect?

Seventeen grounds, plus reprisal and association — but only in five settings: employment, services, housing, contracts, and membership in a union or vocational association. Two grounds are limited to a single setting. The Code does not cover unfairness in general: something has to connect the treatment to a listed ground.

The test every claim runs through

The Supreme Court set it out in Moore, and the Tribunal has confirmed the test does not change from ground to ground.

One

You have a protected characteristic. One of the grounds below, in one of the five settings.

Two

Something adverse happened. Fired, refused, evicted, searched, denied a service, harassed.

Three

The characteristic was a factor in it. Not the only factor, and not the main one. A factor. Nobody has to have intended it, and it can be unconscious.

Most claims that fail, fail on the third. The events are real, the ground is real, and the connection between them was never evidenced. Direct proof almost never exists — the Court of Appeal has confirmed the link can be drawn from circumstances.

Where the Code reaches

Employment

Hiring, firing, pay, promotion, harassment, accommodation. Includes many contract and agency arrangements.

Services

Goods, services and facilities. Police, hospitals, schools, shops, transit, insurance, government.

Housing

Occupancy of accommodation. Renting, eviction, building rules, treatment by a landlord.

Contracts

Entering into a contract, and its terms.

Associations

Membership in a trade union, trade or vocational association.

Outside all five, the Code does not reach. Something can be genuinely discriminatory and still fall outside it — private social conduct, most volunteer arrangements, most dealings between neighbours. Being outside the Code is not a finding that nothing happened.

The grounds

Filter by setting, then open any ground for what it covers, what it does not, and reported decisions where it worked or failed.

What people most often get wrong

An unpardoned criminal conviction is not protected

Record of offences covers a provincial offence, or a federal offence for which a pardon or record suspension was granted and not revoked. A live criminal record is not covered — and the ground exists only in employment.

Reprisal can outlive the claim it came from

Reprisal is protected in its own right under s. 8 and can succeed where the underlying discrimination claim fails, because it protects the act of claiming rather than the merits of the claim. In the corpora we read in full it appears more often than almost every substantive ground.

Two grounds only exist in one setting each

Record of offences is employment-only. Receipt of public assistance is housing-only. The same facts elsewhere need a different ground.

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