Journey · Rule 15
Information from the public record, not legal advice.
What this stage is
If both sides agree, the Tribunal assigns a member to mediate — a confidential, off-the-record meeting (now usually by video) where a settlement is attempted. Nothing said there can be used later. If it settles, the parties file a confirmation (Form 25) and the file closes. If it doesn't, the matter continues toward a hearing in front of a different adjudicator.
Why this stage matters more than the hearing
Most cases that succeed, succeed here — quietly. When Ontario last formally reviewed the system in 2012, mediation typically happened within nine months and 62–65% of mediated cases settled. A settlement can include money, a reference letter, policy change, training — things a hearing might never order, agreed in an afternoon instead of contested for years.
And this is the stage the public record cannot see. A settled case produces no published decision, no reasons, no visible outcome. In fifteen years of decisions naming one police service, exactly one settlement is visible — and only because it was later litigated all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. Everything you can read on CanLII is, by construction, the set of cases that didn't resolve here. That is the visibility gap this project exists to measure: what outcomes disappear.
What the record and the public data show
Whether mediation still settles at 2012 rates is unknown — the Tribunal does not publish current settlement rates. Two things have changed since those numbers: the Human Rights Legal Support Centre's dedicated mediation program — lawyers who attended mediations with otherwise-unrepresented applicants — was defunded in 2018–19, costing the Centre 15% of its staff; and hearing backlogs stretched to years, which changes both sides' incentives. What that did to outcomes is a question our planned data requests are designed to answer.
Going in unrepresented is where the asymmetry bites hardest. The respondent's side of a police case arrives with counsel who has mediated dozens of these; in our corpus, one firm appeared for the respondent side in 70% of matters where counsel was recorded. A mediator cannot advise you or tell you a number is low. If you can get advice for only one day of your case, this is a strong candidate for the day. See Getting help — summary advice before mediation exists precisely for this.
Confirm everything in writing. Terms agreed orally, or by phone afterward, generate the disputes the record shows. Same-day email is the discipline.
What we can't tell you
Current settlement rates, time-to-mediation, or whether represented applicants settle on different terms than unrepresented ones. All of it exists in the Tribunal's case-management system. None of it is published. Our requests are in preparation. FOI Tracker.
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Published in good faith from public records as fair comment on matters of public interest. Believed accurate at the review date; errors will be corrected and logged on notice. Information, not legal advice; no lawyer-client relationship is created.