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

• Author: Shaheen Azmi
• Profession: Director of Policy, Outreach, and Education of the Ontario Human Rights Commission
• Pages: 305-327

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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.