Ontario Human Rights Commission Promotion Activities: The Experience of Responding to Racial Profiling by Police

AuthorShaheen Azmi
ProfessionDirector of Policy, Outreach, and Education of the Ontario Human Rights Commission
Pages305-327
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chapter 11
ONTARIO HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION
PROMOTION ACTIVITIES THE
EXPERIENCE OF RESPONDING TO
RACIAL PROFILING BY POLICE
Shaheen Azmi1
A. INTRODUCTION
The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) has been directly in-
volved in responding to racial proling by police employing multiple
approaches since 2002. Th is article will r eview the key elements of thi s
experience and highlight its promotion elements in particular. This
experience is a prime example of human rights activity by a Canadian
human rights commission that strategically combines protective and
promotion mandates to respond to a complex and entrenched form of
discri mination that has been r esistant to change for ma ny years. It will
be argued that the strategic and sustained employment of promotion
activities by commissions is vital to adequately respond to entrenched
forms of disc rimination in Ca nadian societ y.
B. EMPLOYING THE PROMOTIO N MANDATE
TO RESPOND TO PO LICE RACIAL PROFILING
In accordance wit h international huma n rights law, human rights leg is-
lation in Can ada has generally provid ed commissions with bot h human
1 Shaheen Az mi is the direc tor of Policy, Outreach, a nd Education of the On-
tario Hum an Rights Comm ission. The author is a n employee of the Ontar io
Human Rig hts Commission, bu t the contents of thi s article are h is own
and do not represen t the views of the OHRC.
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shahee n azmi
rights protection and promotion mandates.2 The protection mandate
has involved commissions with handling of individual complaints
from community members. Such activities routinely involve registra-
tion, mediation, investigation, and litigation of human rights com-
plaints. The promotion mandate involves education, public awareness,
training, research, policy development, and systemic change activ ities.
The tendency for Ca nadian human rig hts commissions has bee n for the
protection mandate to preoccupy resources and for promotion activity
to be deemed as seconda ry. In part this i s related to the natu ral tendency
to focus on the lega l aspects of the mand ate that draw most public atten-
tion and media sc rutiny but some of thi s is clearly related to ha rd choices
forced on commissions dealing with limited and increasingly tight
budgets.3
Human rights promotion is understood to be a vital component to
the eective ope ration of a human rights s ystem. The United Nations Of-
ce of the High Comm issioner for Human Rights i ndicates:
Whether hum an rights violations a re intentional or uni ntentional,
struct ural or specic, a la ck of knowledge can result i n actions that
breach human rights principles. Sometimes traditional ways of
thin king and behav ing result in huma n rights abuse. In ei ther case,
human rights education and the inculcation of human rights val-
ues can promote cha nge in behaviour w ithout the need for punit ive
sanctions. Successful human rights promotion can therefore help
prevent human r ights violations f rom occurring i n the rst place.4
The OHRC is unique i n Canada for being t he only commission whose
current mandate is focused primarily on a promotion mandate. As a
2 The Paris Princ iples relating to th e status and f unctioning of n ational
instit utions for human r ights adopted in 1992 by the Un ited Nations Hu-
man Rig hts Commission a nd by the UN General Assembly in 1993 clearly
indicate t he importance of bot h protection and promo tion mandates for
national hu man rights i nstitutions. S ee Principles Relating to the Stat us of
National Institutions, annex to Nat ional Institutions f or the Promotion and
Protection of Human R ights, CHR Res 54, UNE SCOR, Supp No 2, UN Doc
E/1992/22, (1992); GA Res 48/134, UNGAOR, 4 8th Sess, (1993) Annex, ar ticle
3 [Paris Pr inciples].
3 R Brian Howe & David Johnson, R estraining Equality: Human Right s Commis-
sions in Canada (Toronto: Universit y of Toronto Press, 2000) at 120–27.
4 United Nations Oce for the H igh Commissioner f or Human Rights, Na-
tional Human Rights Inst itutions: History, P rinciples, Roles and Respon sibilities
(New York: United Nations, 2010) at 57–58.

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