It is inexcusable that it took a blind job applicant eight long years to win an open-and-shut case of disability discrimination in employment

David Lepofsky, AODA Alliance, December Metroland Column, December 17, 2025
It is inexcusable that it took a blind job applicant eight long years to win an open-and-shut case of disability discrimination in employment. In 2017, a blind St. Catharines resident with two computer-related diplomas applied for a job in a local call centre. His application was turned down. He filed a complaint of disability discrimination with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. Eight long years later, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario ruled that he was the victim of unlawful disability discrimination. The employer hadn’t fulfilled its duty to accommodate his disability in the workplace or its duty to investigate solutions. It was open to the company under the Human Rights Code to present evidence proving that it was impossible to do anything more to fulfil these duties to him, without suffering “undue hardship.” The tribunal ruled that the company didn’t prove this defence.

The Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act
requires the Ontario Government to have led Ontario to be accessible to people with disabilities by 2025 in several areas, including employment. The Government passed a very weak Employment Accessibility Standard in 2011. On January 22, 2019, the Ford Government received the final report of the Government-appointed Employment Standards Development Committee with recommendations to strengthen that accessibility standard.

St. Catharines’ discrimination case illustrates dire need for independent review of Ontario’s human rights tribunal:
Diona Macalinga, CBC News, December 9, 2025
Kamil Karamali, CTV News, November 29, 2025
David Lepofsky, Halton Region News, December 17, 2025