Video Series on Controversial 2006 Reforms to How Ontario’s Anti-Discrimination Law is Enforced, the Ontario Human Rights Code

Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Update

United for a Barrier-Free Ontario for All People with Disabilities

Website: www.aodaalliance.org

Email: aodafeedback@gmail.com

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Video Series on Controversial 2006 Reforms to How Ontario’s Anti-Discrimination Law is Enforced, the Ontario Human Rights Code

 

February 21, 2026

 

SUMMARY

 

So many people with disabilities continue to face so many disability barriers in Ontario. Because the Ontario Government has done such a poor job of implementing and enforcing the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, they too often must consider resorting to filing an individual human rights complaint under the Ontario Human Rights Code. The process for doing that is riddled with problems, as the AODA Alliance and others predicted as far back as 2006. Here’s an AODA Alliance video series on this very important topic that far too few people know much if anything about!

 

The Ontario Human Rights Code is Ontario’s law that bans discrimination in employment, housing, goods, services and other areas on a long list of grounds, including disability.

 

Not enough people know that in 2006, the Ontario Legislature passed very controversial reforms to that law. These dramatically changed how a discrimination claim can be enforced in Ontario. Those changes went into effect in 2008 and remain in effect.

 

Before these reforms, if you felt you were the victim of unlawful discrimination, you could file a complaint with the Ontario Human Rights Commission It had the duty to investigate cases, and try to mediate settlements. If the Commission felt that the case warranted a hearing, and could not affect a settlement between the parties, it could take the case to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. The Tribunal would hold a hearing. The Ontario Human Rights Commission presented the case.

 

Before 2006, it took far too long to get these cases decided. The system was widely criticized from many vantagepoints and for varying reasons.

 

In 2006, the Ontario Government then in power decided to reform the system. It brought forward and eventually enacted Bill 107, which revised the Ontario Human Rights Code However, its reforms were very controversial. The AODA Alliance and a number of other allies agreed that reforms were needed, but strongly opposed the Government’s proposed reforms. The Government took the Ontario Human Rights Commission out of its primary law enforcement role. It privatized enforcement in this area. If you felt that you were a victim of discrimination, you had to investigate your own case and present it yourself at the Tribunal. Many claimants cannot afford a lawyer. The Government created a new Ontario Human Rights Legal Support Centre but that agency can only serve a small fraction of people bringing claims. The AODA Alliances advocacy on this issue, mainly between 2006 and 2008, is thoroughly documented on the AODA website’s Human Rights Reform page. This video series and the additional resources listed here all give a closer look at these changes. It begins with a talk that introduces to the duty to accommodate people with disabilities under human rights law in Canada. That duty lies at the core of many disability discrimination cases. A lecture by AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky is then provided which explains the controversial debate over Bill 107 and its aftermath. This series also includes several news conferences at the Ontario legislature at Queen’s Park that took place surrounding these reforms, and a presentation in 2007 by the AODA Alliance to a Select Committee of the Ontario Legislature.

 

These videos will interest you if:

 

  • You work in any capacity in the justice system, e.g., as a judge, court staff, policy planner, administrative tribunal member.
  • You want to learn about disability rights, disability advocacy or the history of our disability rights movement.
  • You want to advocate for disability rights or freedom from discrimination more generally, and want to see our grass roots advocacy in action, to learn how it is done.
  • You are a lawyer, law student, or future lawyer or law student, who wants to learn about disability rights and human rights issues.
  • You work in the field of disability accessibility or anti-discrimination.
  • You are involved in any social justice, equity or social justice advocacy or campaigning and want to learn from our experience and/or want your efforts to fully include people with disabilities as an equality-seeking group.
  • You work at a disability community organization of any sort.
  • You teach law, politics, public or social policy, disability issues, human rights and discrimination, social justice, social work, history, political science, architecture and other areas of design, public planning, and other topics that can touch on disability accessibility, disability inclusion or disability rights.
  • You live outside Ontario Canada and would like to see what’s going on here to compare with practices and efforts elsewhere in the world.

 

Some of our videos have been used in schools, and in college and university and other courses. Disability organizations in Ontario and elsewhere around the world have used them. We are delighted. Any teachers should feel free to use them as much as they wish! You don’t need to ask us in advance, but we would love to know when they are being used, if possible.

 

Below is a Quick Guide that lists all the videos catalogued here. After that, we include a fuller description of each video, including its title, the link to it, a description of it, and a list of additional resources on the topic that the video covers. Anyone using these videos to teach a course, or to write a paper for a course, will find that background information helpful.

 

Over time, we will create more videos. We will add them to this list when relevant. To find out what’s new, just jump to the end of this web page, and then scroll up.

 

Many of our videos are on the AODA Alliances YouTube channel. Others are on the YouTube channels of other organizations. Please sign up to follow our YouTube channel so you can get notified whenever a new video is posted there.

 

How to Learn More

  • Browse through the AODA Alliance website’s Human Rights Reform page.
  • Visit the AODA Alliance website’s videos page to see other series of videos that we have created, and a mega-list of all our videos together. More video series will be posted over time.
  • Send us your feedback. Write us at aodafeedback@gmail.com and tell us what you think of these videos and how you have used them. For more information about our disability advocacy:
  • Go to the AODA Alliance website’s home page and sign up to receive our newsletter. We announce each new video series in our AODA Alliance Updates.
  • Check out the AODA Alliance’s podcast called: Disability Rights and Wrongs — The David Lepodcast. It is available on the major podcast platforms like Apple Music and Spotify.

 

 

Quick Guide

 

  1. Introduction to the Duty to Accommodate People with Disabilities

 

  1. Controversial 2006 Changes to the Enforcement of Human Rights (Anti-discrimination) Legislation in Ontario – The Important Debate around Bill 107’s Privatization of Human Rights in Ontario February 6, 2017

 

  1. 9, 2006: Queen’s Park News Conference Human Rights Advocates Opposing Ontario Bill 107 Privatizing Enforcement of the Ontario Human Rights Code

 

  1. 28, 2006 Queen’s Park News Conference Opposing Bill 107 Privatizing Human Rights Enforcement

 

  1. July 2, 2008: Queen’s Park News Conference Raising Concerns regarding Bill 107

 

  1. September 7, 2007: AODA Alliance Queen’s Park News Conference on Bill 107 which Privatized Enforcement of the Ontario Human Rights Code

 

  1. 9 2009 AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky Addresses Select Committee on Government Agencies regarding the Implementation of Bill 107, which Privatized Enforcement of the Ontario Human Rights Code

 

Detailed Guide

 

Video 1) Title: Introduction to the Duty to Accommodate People with Disabilities

Link to video: https://youtu.be/y32XvjWmDAQ

Description: Osgoode Hall Law School Visiting Professor of Disability Rights and Legal Education and AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky provides this one hour, captioned presentation that explains the content, meaning, and limits of the duty to accommodate people with disabilities in employment, goods, services, and facilities, under human rights/anti-discrimination legislation and under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is aimed at people who don’t know much if anything about the details of the duty to accommodate people with disabilities.

Related resources:

 

Video 2) Title: Controversial 2006 Changes to the Enforcement of Human Rights (Anti-discrimination) Legislation in Ontario – The Important Debate around Bill 107’s Privatization of Human Rights in Ontario February 6, 2017

Link to video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH4xCi5Ye_g&t=6s

Description: In this captioned lecture, given to a first year State and Citizen course at the Osgoode Hall Law School, David Lepofsky explores the controversial changes that the Ontario Government made in 2006 to the way a discrimination victim enforces his or her human rights in Ontario, through the enactment of Bill 107. Before that change, discrimination complaints were brought to a public law enforcement agency, the Ontario Human Rights Commission. After the 2006 reforms imposed under Bill 107, an amendment to the Ontario Human Rights Code, human rights enforcement was privatized. Discrimination victims had to privately investigate and present their own case before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, without a public law enforcement agency. David Lepofsky took active part in that 2006 debate on behalf of the AODA Alliance, which vigourously opposed these reforms.

Related resources:

  • The history of the unfolding debate over Bill 107 in 2006, and its aftermath, recounted in detail on a special part of the AODA Alliance’s website, available at this link.
  • The November 27, 2006 AODA Alliance brief, calling for substantial amendments to Bill 107 before the Legislature passed it, available at this link.
  • The March 1, 2012 AODA Alliance brief to the Andrew Pinto Review which the Ontario Government appointed to review the effectiveness of Bill 107, available at this link.
  • The April 12, 2012 supplemental AODA Alliance brief to the Pinto Review (link here), which the Pinto Review refused to read (link here).
  • The November 2012 final report of the Andrew Pinto Review of Bill 107, available at this link.
  • The November 16, 2012 AODA Alliance analysis of the Andrew Pinto Bill 107 Review final report, available at this link.

 

Video 3) Title: Nov. 9, 2006: Queen’s Park News Conference Human Rights Advocates Opposing Ontario Bill 107 Privatizing Enforcement of the Ontario Human Rights Code

Link to video: https://youtu.be/0u7V0NXP8q4

Description: The AODA Alliance (David Lepofsky), Metro Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic (Avvy Go) and the African Canadian Legal Clinic (Margaret Parsons) spoke at a news conference on November 9, 2006 at the Ontario Legislature’s Queen’s park Media Studio. They outline serious grassroots problems with the Ontario Government’s proposed Bill 107. That bill would reform and privatize how human rights (anti-discrimination) legislation would be enforced in Ontario. They presented an alternative solution to backlogs in the Ontario human rights system.

Related resources:

  • The history of the unfolding debate over Bill 107 in 2006, and its aftermath, recounted in detail on a special part of the AODA Alliance’s website, available at this link.
  • The November 27, 2006 AODA Alliance brief, calling for substantial amendments to Bill 107 before the Legislature passed it, available at this link.
  • The March 1, 2012 AODA Alliance brief to the Andrew Pinto Review which the Ontario Government appointed to review the effectiveness of Bill 107, available at this link.
  • The April 12, 2012 supplemental AODA Alliance brief to the Pinto Review (link here), which the Pinto Review refused to read (link here).
  • The November 2012 final report of the Andrew Pinto Review of Bill 107, available at this link.
  • The November 16, 2012 AODA Alliance analysis of the Andrew Pinto Bill 107 Review final report, available at this link.

 

Video 4) Title: Nov. 28, 2006 Queen’s Park News Conference Opposing Bill 107 Privatizing Human Rights Enforcement

Link to video: https://youtu.be/XRP4Qtb8CV0

Description: On November 28, 2006, a news conference was held at the Ontario Legislature’s Queen’s Park Media Studio to oppose the McGuinty Government’s imposing closure to shut down further public hearings in the Ontario Legislature on its Bill 107. Bill 107 would privatize enforcement of the Ontario Human Rights Code. Speakers at the news conference included Ontario Progressive Conservative Party Leader John Tory, New Democratic Party Member of the Legislature Peter Kormos, AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky, and former Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission Keith Norton.

Related resources:

  • The history of the unfolding debate over Bill 107 in 2006, and its aftermath, recounted in detail on a special part of the AODA Alliance’s website, available at this link.
  • The November 27, 2006 AODA Alliance brief, calling for substantial amendments to Bill 107 before the Legislature passed it, available at this link.
  • The March 1, 2012 AODA Alliance brief to the Andrew Pinto Review which the Ontario Government appointed to review the effectiveness of Bill 107, available at this link.
  • The April 12, 2012 supplemental AODA Alliance brief to the Pinto Review (link here), which the Pinto Review refused to read (link here).
  • The November 2012 final report of the Andrew Pinto Review of Bill 107, available at this link.
  • The November 16, 2012 AODA Alliance analysis of the Andrew Pinto Bill 107 Review final report, available at this link.

 

Video 5) Title: July 2, 2008: Queen’s Park News Conference Raising Concerns regarding Bill 107

Link to video: https://youtu.be/VNqM9iIqY3w

Description: On July 2, 2008, David Lepofsky, Chair of the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance, and Avvy Go, executive director of the Metro Chinese and Southeast Asian Legal Clinic, held a news conference at the Ontario Legislature’s Queen’s park Media Studio in Toronto. They identified serious problems in the launch of the recently enacted Bill 107. It privatized enforcement of Ontario’s anti-discrimination legislation, the Ontario Human Rights Code.

Related resources:

  • The history of the unfolding debate over Bill 107 in 2006, and its aftermath, recounted in detail on a special part of the AODA Alliance’s website, available at this link.
  • The November 27, 2006 AODA Alliance brief, calling for substantial amendments to Bill 107 before the Legislature passed it, available at this link.
  • The March 1, 2012 AODA Alliance brief to the Andrew Pinto Review which the Ontario Government appointed to review the effectiveness of Bill 107, available at this link.
  • The April 12, 2012 supplemental AODA Alliance brief to the Pinto Review (link here), which the Pinto Review refused to read (link here).
  • The November 2012 final report of the Andrew Pinto Review of Bill 107, available at this link.
  • The November 16, 2012 AODA Alliance analysis of the Andrew Pinto Bill 107 Review final report, available at this link.

 

Video 6) Title: September 7, 2007: AODA Alliance Queen’s Park News Conference on Bill 107 which Privatized Enforcement of the Ontario Human Rights Code

Link to video: https://youtu.be/gRpZ8ytbvCs

Description: On September 7, 2007, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance held a news conference at the Ontario Legislature’s Queen’s Park Media Studio. Speaking was acting AODA Alliance Chair Dorine Winkler and AODA Alliance Human Rights Reform Representative and future Chair David Lepofsky. Held during the 2007 Ontario election campaign, the AODA Alliance made public the written elections commitments it had received from the political parties on making Ontario accessible for people with disabilities.

Related resources:

 

Video 7) Title: Feb. 9 2009 AODA Alliance Chair David Lepofsky Addresses Select Committee on Government Agencies regarding the Implementation of Bill 107, which Privatized Enforcement of the Ontario Human Rights Code

Link to video: https://youtu.be/G3pr9eXdx3w

Description: On February 9, 2009, Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act Alliance Chair David Lepofsky addressed the Ontario Legislature’s Select Committee on Government Agencies. He identified serious problems with the enforcement of Ontario’s anti-discrimination legislation, the Ontario Human Rights Code since its enforcement was privatized under Bill 107.

Related resources:

  • The history of the unfolding debate over Bill 107 in 2006, and its aftermath, recounted in detail on a special part of the AODA Alliance’s website, available at this link.
  • The November 27, 2006 AODA Alliance brief, calling for substantial amendments to Bill 107 before the Legislature passed it, available at this link.
  • The March 1, 2012 AODA Alliance brief to the Andrew Pinto Review which the Ontario Government appointed to review the effectiveness of Bill 107, available at this link.
  • The April 12, 2012 supplemental AODA Alliance brief to the Pinto Review (link here), which the Pinto Review refused to read (link here).
  • The November 2012 final report of the Andrew Pinto Review of Bill 107, available at this link.
  • The November 16, 2012 AODA Alliance analysis of the Andrew Pinto Bill 107 Review final report, available at this link.