The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario: Access to Justice Denied
Quick Summary
Ontario’s human rights system has become a nightmare for people who seek redress for alleged discrimination, a new analysis by the independent group Tribunal Watch Ontario shows.
The latest statistics from the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO) show that the tribunal has become the place where human rights claims go to die. Tribunal Watch’s analysis, largely based on data from the HRTO’s own website, shows:
- A stunning 93% of HRTO’s decisions were dismissals of claims without a hearing, most after being stalled for years and then ruled as abandoned by a tribunal that imposes onerous requirements on applicants. Even though a large majority of people filing claims have no legal representation, they are being compelled to file written legal and factual submissions on sometimes complex issues, or else see their case dismissed.
- There are strong indications that people who may have legitimate claims are simply giving up after their cases languish for years, mired in the HRTO’s process. As a strategy to handle its huge backlog, the HRTO appears to be pushing applicants into abandoning their claims.
- A system designed to accommodate applicants with no legal representation is increasingly using legal technicalities to deny hearings to people who want to present their case.
- For the very few applicants who get to a full hearing on their case, the wait between filing a claim and a final decision is now normally between four and 10 years.
- The HRTO’s drive to close files has led to a spike in dismissals of cases at the Tribunal’s own initiative, without giving applicants an opportunity to tell their stories so that they can be properly assessed on their merits.
- An increasing number of cases are being dismissed because of the HRTO’s own errors in handling files.
- The Human Rights Legal Support Centre, an organization set up by a previous government to assist applicants in navigating the system, has been starved for funds for years and is shrinking.
The Human Rights Code, with its protections against discrimination based on race, disability, sex and other personal characteristics, is one of Ontario’s most important laws. In most cases, the HRTO is the only recourse for people to enforce their right to be free of discrimination. The Ontario government must take steps to address the crisis at the HRTO.
Introduction
A person who experiences discrimination in Ontario today has no accessible, effective way to seek redress. If this individual starts a legal application to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (HRTO), their claim will likely be queued up behind thousands of other applications that are stalled in the process. Every year, hundreds of applications stuck in the queue are dismissed without a hearing or mediation because of new procedural barriers erected by the HRTO. A process that in the past supported applicants without lawyers has been modified to make it almost impossible for a self-represented claimant to have their discrimination claim heard by a fair and expert decision-maker.
The Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario is now the place where, in far too many cases, human rights claims in this province go to die.
This decline in the accessibility and quality of justice has happened under the Ford government and under the leadership of its new umbrella agency, Tribunals Ontario. The leadership at Tribunals Ontario, appointed by the Ford government, is responsible for 14 tribunals in Ontario, including the HRTO and the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB), another adjudicative agency that is notoriously failing the people of Ontario.
Tribunal Watch Ontario has been sounding the alarm about the precipitous decline in access to justice at the HRTO (and the LTB) since 2022. In previous public statements, we have shone a light on the size of the backlog, the delays at every stage, the loss of in-person hearings, the expanded use of tribunal-initiated dismissals, and the alarming increase in abandoned applications when those applications have been stalled for years. We have explained how the HRTO is now dismissing hundreds more applications every year, often after letting the cases sit for several years in its backlog, based on a new “balance of probability” test for jurisdiction that undercuts the statutory right of applicants to make oral submissions.
In the fall of 2024, Tribunals Ontario will release a new Annual Report, for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2024. While we expect the report will cite a small drop in the size of its backlog, in large part, this will be the result of new and onerous filing requirements that are pushing hundreds of unrepresented applicants into abandoning their applications.
Despite any drop in the number of cases in the system, there will continue to be approximately a three-year backlog, based on the HRTO record of closing approximately 3,000 applications a year. The last reported backlog, as of March 31, 2023, was 9,527 cases, compared with only 4,693 in 2016/17. (The HRTO did not publish any backlog figures between 2016/17 and 2022/23).
Analysis of the Open Data Inventory on the Tribunals Ontario website reveals that an unprecedented 93% of all final HRTO decisions in 2023/24 were “jurisdictional or procedural” dismissals of applications. In almost 80% of these dismissals, the applicant is deemed to have abandoned an application that, in the vast majority of cases, has been stuck in the queue for years. The trigger for dismissal is the HRTO re-activating the case by sending a Notice of Intent to Dismiss or other notice requiring the applicant to file new written submission on the legal and factual basis for the claim. In a typical case, a self-represented applicant is then deemed to have abandoned their claim after failing to file a written response within the time allowed.
The HRTO’s own numbers establish that when a tribunal fails to effectively move applications towards resolution, it can count on a significant number of applicants giving up. This is particularly true when most applicants have no legal representation.
Roughly 80% of applicants at the HRTO are not represented by counsel when they file their applications: https://tribunalsontario.ca/en/open/data-inventory-reports/?x=0&n=7
The human rights process was designed to be accessible to self-represented applicants, with a comprehensive application form that allowed the applicant to “tell their story” in their own words. Yet since moving under Tribunals Ontario in 2019, the HRTO has made its process less accessible for self-represented applicants, as well as more expensive for an applicant who can afford to hire a lawyer.
The HRTO is required by the Human Rights Code (sections 40 and 41) to adopt procedures and practices that offer the best opportunity for a “fair, just and expeditious resolution of the merits of the applications” and to interpret its rules liberally to facilitate those aims. But the HRTO, in relying on formalities and technicalities, appears to be doing exactly the opposite, even though neither the Code nor the Tribunal’s own rules, has changed.
Now, the HRTO is proposing to restrict access and fairness even further by making changes to its Rules of Procedure. It announced on Oct. 25 that it was initiating a consultation process of only two weeks (now extended by another two weeks) on proposed changes that include eliminating summary hearings, case management conference calls, interim remedies and expedited hearings. Summary hearings can weed out meritless cases, but also provide an opportunity for applicants to establish that their case should proceed. Case management conference calls are a useful tool to prepare cases for hearing. Interim remedies and expedited hearings, while rare, are important in extraordinary circumstances.
For more details, see Tribunal Watch Ontario’s commentary on these proposed changes at Tribunal Watch Ontario comments on the HRTO’s proposed Rules of Procedure changes.
Set out below are more detailed observations based on the most recent HRTO data published by Tribunals Ontario on its website.
Very few cases make it to a hearing to decide if discrimination has occurred
In 2023/24, the HRTO released 40 final substantive evidentiary decisions, including four where the applicant was not allowed to testify because they had not filed a statement about their evidence, and nine where the respondent did not appear. This was up from 33 decisions the year before and 16 in 2021/22. But Annual Reports for the five years before the HRTO was moved into Tribunals Ontario show that the Tribunal was issuing an average of 110 final substantive decisions annually: https://tribunalsontario.ca/en/governance-accountability-documents/#annre.
Only four in-person “hearing events” are reported to date for the 2023/24 fiscal year, compared with 1,342 electronic hearing events conducted by videoconference or telephone https://tribunalsontario.ca/en/key-performance-indicators/hrto-key-performance-indicators/. Although it is unclear what a “hearing event” is – it is not defined – it appears that the HRTO has almost entirely abandoned an in-person format, even for full evidentiary hearings. Individuals no longer have the right to testify in person before an adjudicator.
There are also substantially fewer interim decisions, which cover procedural issues such as amending the application to include the proper name of the respondent: in 2017/18, the HRTO issued 743 interim decisions; in 2023/24, it issued only 246 interim decisions: https://tribunalsontario.ca/en/open/data-inventory-reports/?x=0&n=5 . This drop by more than 66% demonstrates that the HRTO is not effectively moving cases forward through its process. It corroborates the comments by many counsel who appear before the HRTO that it has become difficult to get a ruling from the HRTO on an interim request or motion.
Parties can expect to wait between four and 10 years to get to a hearing
Out of the 40 substantive evidentiary decisions released by the HRTO in 2023/24, all but two of the applications were filed between 2014 and 2020. Six decisions were on applications filed between 2014 and 2016. The bulk of the decisions, 34 out of 40, were on applications filed between January 2017 and December 2020.
Based on this pattern, a person who files a discrimination claim in the fall of 2024, and is lucky enough to be one of the 2-3% of applicants who are eventually awarded a full hearing, should not expect to receive a final decision until the fall of 2028 at the earliest, and more likely in 2030 or later. In fact, the HRTO may now be “fast-tracking” selected newly-filed applications in an effort to meet its performance targets, while older cases remain stuck in the backlog.
While the number of final evidentiary decisions has fallen by more than 50% since the HRTO was moved into Tribunals Ontario in 2019, the delays in getting to a full hearing and final decision have grown substantially. A Tribunal Watch Ontario review of full final decisions issued in 2017/18 revealed that most decisions – 69% – were released to the parties within two years of filing.
In other words, only a few years ago, the HRTO was able to move more than twice as many files to a final decision and did so, in most cases, in half the time.
The public is turning away from the HRTO: new application numbers are down
In recent years, fewer Ontarians have turned to the HRTO for help in resolving discrimination claims. The average number of incoming applications for the three years ending on March 31, 2024, was 3,621 annually. This compares with an average of 4,449 annually for the prior three years. With this reduction in new applications, the backlog should have fallen dramatically; instead, it has more than doubled since 2016/17.
The drop in the number of new applications cumulatively amounts to nearly 2,500 fewer applications in the years from 2021/22 through 2023/24, when compared with the period from 2018/19 through 2020/21. It seems unlikely that this reduction is rooted in a decrease in the number of alleged discrimination or harassment incidents across the province. The drop in number of Ontarians turning to the HRTO for redress suggests that the tribunal has lost credibility as an effective body to address and resolve human rights claims.
HRTO is now dismissing twice as many cases without a hearing
Some of the most concerning data now available relates to Tribunal-initiated dismissals without a hearing. In 2023/24, the HRTO dismissed over 1,344 applications on what it classifies as “jurisdictional and procedural” grounds, without affording the applicant an opportunity to make oral submissions. By way of comparison, in 2017/18, only 610 applications were dismissed without an oral hearing, on “jurisdictional or procedural” grounds: https://tribunalsontario.ca/en/open/data-inventory-reports/?x=0&n=5. This is an increase of more than 100 percent.
Most of these dismissals were precipitated by the HRTO delivering a Notice of Intent to Dismiss to an applicant whose case had been stalled for years in its backlog. The notice advised the applicant that the HRTO was questioning whether it had jurisdiction to hear the case and required the applicant to file written submissions or face dismissal of the application. The notice generally required the applicant to address in writing how the facts and the law would establish a link between the negative treatment outlined in the application (for example, reduced shift hours at work) and the ground of discrimination claimed (for example, age, disability, pregnancy, race).
As previously discussed by Tribunal Watch, the Human Rights Code requires that the HRTO not dispose of cases that are within its jurisdiction without affording the parties an opportunity to make oral submissions: s.43(2)1. However, the HRTO is now dismissing applications stalled in its backlog by assessing its jurisdiction based on the newly-required written submissions and without giving the applicant a chance to speak directly to an adjudicator and explain their case.
Previously, the Tribunal would dismiss an application without an oral hearing only if it was “plain and obvious” that it lacked jurisdiction, for example with a claim that was out of time, or was a federal matter, or was already being litigated in the courts. Since July 2021, under a new direction from Tribunals Ontario, hundreds of applications have been dismissed without a hearing on the basis that it is “more likely than not” that the HRTO lacks jurisdiction because the adjudicator is not satisfied that, based on the application and the newly-required written submissions, the applicant will be able to prove a causal connection between the negative treatment reported and a ground of discrimination.
In the past, a person with a seemingly weak application that could fall outside the HRTO’s jurisdiction would be given a chance to explain their case at an oral summary hearing, usually conducted by telephone. An unrepresented applicant had the opportunity to speak to an adjudicator and frequently, he or she could satisfy the adjudicator that there was a basis for allowing the claim to go forward. In discrimination cases, often the deciding evidence of discrimination will come from the applicant’s oral testimony at a hearing or from documents in the sole possession of the respondent that are disclosed only before a hearing.
While the HRTO continued to offer a reduced number of Summary Hearings in 2023/24, it announced on October 25, 2024, that it plans to amend its Rules of Procedure to eliminate Summary Hearings altogether
By requiring applicants to file written submissions on the legal and factual basis for their application, instead of allowing them the opportunity to speak to an adjudicator at an oral hearing, the HRTO is imposing onerous new requirements, particularly for the 80% of applicants who are unrepresented. The new filing requirements appear to be behind the very significant increase in the number of applications that are now being abandoned after being stalled in the backlog for years.
Human rights claimants stuck in the backlog are giving up
Even more alarming than the twofold increase in dismissals without a hearing -– but not surprising – is the almost threefold increase in the number of those dismissals that are based on abandonment, as between 2017/18 and 2023/24. In 2017/18, only 374 applications were dismissed as abandoned; in 2023/24, there were 1,083: https://tribunalsontario.ca/en/open/data-inventory-reports/?x=0&n=5.
A Tribunal Watch review of dozens of dismissals based on abandonment reported on CanLII since January 2024 demonstrated that a significant majority of dismissed applications were filed in 2020 or earlier. A typical scenario in these dismissal decisions involved an applicant who filed in 2019, and whose application became stalled in the HRTO process for months and years at a time, until receiving either a Notice of Intent to Dismiss or a Case Assessment Direction, requiring written legal and factual submissions by a deadline, failing which the case would be deemed abandoned and dismissed.
In most dismissals based on a deemed abandonment, the applicant fails to meet the deadline to file additional material. In many cases, the applicant does not respond at all to the HRTO communication and may or may not have received it. In almost every case, the applicant is one of the 80% of HRTO claimants who is not represented by counsel. When additional written submissions are filed by unrepresented applicants, they are almost always dismissed as inadequate. In other cases, the applicant manages to respond in writing by the deadline, but the HRTO is not satisfied that the new submissions establish it is more likely than not that the applicant could prove discrimination if their case were allowed to proceed after the many years of HRTO delay.
Tribunal Watch is concerned that, in many cases, the adjudicators dismissing these applications have never presided over a full evidentiary hearing and their government-published biographies demonstrate no expertise in discrimination law.
When, as here, a tribunal leaves applications languishing in its backlog for years at a time, it is not surprising that many applicants, particularly if not represented by counsel, will fail to respond positively or effectively, or often at all, to a newly imposed deadline to file additional materials.
While many cases are settled in mediation, the HRTO provides inadequate statistics on the settlement rate in mediation. In addition, with the long delays in the HRTO process, how many parties are settling simply because they are tired of waiting for a hearing?
More onerous filing requirements impede access to a hearing
As discussed above, the new requirement imposed on thousands of applicants to file written legal and factual submissions before their application will be processed or reactivated by the HRTO has resulted in thousands of dismissals and abandonments, particularly of applications stuck in the backlog. But that is not the only change in approach that is undercutting accessibility. In the past year, the HRTO has introduced a more rigid approach to the filing requirements before a hearing for the lucky 2-3% of applicants who are offered a hearing, usually many years after filing.
In the past, all parties were given a notice requiring them to exchange and file documents and witness statements 45 days before a scheduled hearing date. Now, even though the HRTO’s own rules still specify compliance with these obligations only once the tribunal sets a hearing date, the HRTO is requiring documents and witness statements to be produced even before the HRTO sets a hearing date. In addition, there is a new requirement to file a case summary of “no more than 8 pages” that includes:
- brief summary of every point in issue.
- brief summary of every outstanding procedural or jurisdictional issue or request being raised by that party.
The notice emphasizes that the case summary must address every procedural and substantive issue. For a party without a lawyer – whether an applicant or a respondent – this requirement is daunting. The notice informs the parties that if they fail to comply by the deadline, the application may be dismissed as abandoned.
Tribunal Watch Ontario questions why this new requirement has been imposed by a tribunal that is well aware that a large majority of applicants – approximately 80% according to the HRTO’s own figures – are not represented by lawyers. The applicant has already set out facts and issues in the HRTO application form, probably to the best of their ability. Imposing a requirement to articulate in writing every point in issue and every procedural and jurisdictional issue that may arise at the hearing, at risk of dismissal, seems designed to discourage applicants with no experience in litigation from proceeding rather than designed to facilitate a fair hearing. This approach is not consistent with the best thinking on how to design a legal process to facilitate the participation of unsophisticated parties without legal counsel.
The contrast with the practice in the Small Claims Court – another adjudicative body that sees parties who have no legal representation – is illuminating. Unlike at the HRTO, parties in the Small Claims Court are not required to file witness statements, and judges of the court have more discretion to consider documents that have not been provided to the opposing party before the hearing.
Parties who fail to file a witness statement about their own evidence are now prevented from giving evidence
In the past, if a party failed to file a witness statement for one of their witnesses, the adjudicator hearing the case might not allow that witness to testify at the hearing if it appeared that the other party had no notice of the likely content of the testimony. This was required by the HRTO Rules of Procedure in part to ensure that both sides had notice of the other party’s evidence and a fair opportunity to present their side of the case. Sometimes unrepresented applicants (or respondents) would fail to file a witness statement about their own testimony, on the assumption that they had already given their version of events on the application or response form. Although the HRTO Rules do not require the parties to file their own witness statements, adjudicators generally required this of the parties in order to facilitate an efficient and fair hearing. In the past, if a party failed to file their own witness statement, they were allowed to testify at the hearing, but their testimony might be limited to the areas set out in their application or response form.
The requirement to file witness statements can be onerous for self-represented parties; most self-represented parties are applicants. In the past, the Human Rights Legal Support Centre (HRLSC) was able to assist many applicants in preparing their pre-hearing disclosure, including witness statements. Two things have changed. First, as discussed below, the HRLSC no longer has sufficient staff to be able to assist applicants in preparing witness statements, with few exceptions. And second, in the past year, the HRTO has begun to bar parties from testifying at their hearing if they have not filed a witness statement about their own anticipated testimony, even though this is not required by the Rules. For the applicant, this means that the application is automatically dismissed because there is no testimony in support.
Tribunal Watch Ontario identified four of the 40 final merit decisions released in 2023/24 where the application was dismissed when a self-represented applicant appeared for their hearing and was denied the opportunity to give evidence because they had failed to file a witness statement summarizing the evidence they themselves intended to give. These were applications that had been filed in 2018, 2019 and 2020. After waiting 4-5 years for a hearing, these applicants faced adjudicators who did not exercise their discretion to let them testify, with whatever limitations on the scope of testimony were appropriate. These dismissals fly in the face of the language of section 40 and 41 of the Code itself, which require that hearings be conducted, and Rules applied, in a way that facilitates a fair and just resolution of the merits of each application. Tribunal Watch Ontario is unaware of any situation in past years where an applicant at a hearing was denied the right to give evidence because they had not filed their own witness statement, leading to automatic dismissal.
HRTO administrative errors result in unfair dismissals
Legal clinics and counsel appearing before the HRTO have reported many instances in which applications are dismissed when the HRTO fails to upload documents filed by applicants. The new filing requirements have increased the chances of HRTO administrative errors that disproportionately impact applicants. To try to assess the situation, Tribunal Watch Ontario reviewed all the decisions in 2023/24 and in the first quarter of 2024/25 in which a dismissal was overturned after an applicant filed a request for reconsideration.
We found that in the 2023/24 year, ending on March 31, 2024, 29 of the 39 decisions in which reconsideration was granted involved administrative error on the part of the HRTO, almost all due to a failure to upload documents filed by the applicant under the new requirements. In the first quarter of the current year, the numbers were even more alarming. In the three months ending June 30, 2024, there were 13 successful reconsideration applications brought by applicants whose cases had been dismissed, of which 11 involved an administrative error and one involved adjudicator error.
By way of comparison, Tribunal Watch Ontario looked at the reconsideration decisions from 2017/18. There were 11 positive reconsideration decisions but only five involved administrative errors resulting in dismissal.
Although these numbers are only a small fraction of the HRTO’s files, they suggest a larger problem. In 2023/24, 1,083 decisions were issued by the HRTO dismissing applications as abandoned by the applicant. In how many of these cases, did the HRTO fail to upload submissions or documents filed by the applicant, leading to a false finding of abandonment? When dismissing a case as abandoned, the HRTO does not alert applicants to their right to request a reconsideration. Many applicants would not have the knowledge or wherewithal to file for a reconsideration, especially when their original application was filed years earlier.
In addition, there is no record of how many applications are dismissed at the very front end, before being accepted as filed, because of the same pattern of administrative error, specifically the failure of administrative staff to upload the complete application. Tribunal Watch Ontario is aware of at least one case in which an application was rejected on the basis that there was no statement of the facts, when in fact the HRTO had failed to input the statement into its system. Because the application was not accepted, there was no avenue to ask for reconsideration and the applicant had to re-file the application.
How many other cases are there like this, where the applicant is unrepresented and cannot push back?
The Human Rights Legal Support Centre is not able to fulfill its mandate to provide legal services to applicants
The discussion of new barriers for applicants at the HRTO would not be complete without noting the decline in legal services now available to applicants.
The Human Rights Legal Support Centre (HRLSC) was established by legislation to provide free legal assistance and representation to applicants before the HRTO. For many years, it had a robust legal staff, including more than 21 litigation lawyers representing applicants at mediations and hearings before the HRTO. There are now fewer than 10 HRLSC lawyers providing direct legal services to the public.
Staff reductions are primarily the result of frozen funding. The HRLSC’s core funding from the Ontario government has increased only minimally since its doors opened 16 years ago. In its first full year of operation, it received $5.6 million from the provincial government; in 2023/24, that figure was $5.8 million, according to its most recent Annual Report. From 2013/14 to 2018/19, the HRLSC received additional project funding from the Ministry of the Attorney General ($572,000) to increase legal services at HRTO mediations, but that funding ended as of March 31, 2019. Inflation since 2009 has eroded almost $2 million in the value of its core funding, resulting in an effective 33% drop.
Frozen and reduced funding has meant the loss of front-line positions, including lawyers. The impact is felt in reduced services, particularly since 2018/19, when its special mediation-focused funding was cut. Comparing the level of service in 2018/19 to 2023/24, as reported in the latest Annual Report, we find that the staff answered almost 4,000 fewer inquiries from individuals seeking legal assistance, a 25% reduction. In addition, the number of human rights claimants who received in-depth legal services shrank by almost 40% – more than 1,000 fewer people were assisted with their applications before the HRTO in 2023/24, as compared with 2018/19.
Looking at representation, HRLSC lawyers attended 40% fewer mediations in 2023/24, and settled over 300 fewer human rights cases, a drop of almost 60%. Representation at hearings shrank by 74%, with HRLSC lawyers representing applicants at 36 fewer merit hearings in 2023/24, as compared to 2018/19.
Even considering the lower volume of hearings at the HRTO, we still see a significant service reduction when we compare HRLSC-attended merit hearings to the number of merit decisions released by the HRTO in each of the two comparator years. In 2018/19, the HRLSC attended 47 merit hearings and the HRTO released 65 merit decisions, a correlation of 72%. In 2023/24, the HRLSC attended 12 merit hearings and the HRTO released 40 merit decisions, a correlation of only 30%.
The services of the HRLSC are even more critically needed today, when applicants face new and heightened barriers to achieving a fair and just resolution of their human rights claims. The HRLSC is no longer providing assistance and representation to hundreds of applicants who would have received its help in the past, even though the process is harder to navigate for a self-represented applicant. In 2023/24 alone, over 1,000 human rights claimants abandoned their applications; we don’t know how many of these applicants would have been able to proceed if they had been able to obtain the legal assistance that the system was designed to provide through the HRLSC.
Tribunal Watch calls on the Ontario Government to begin today to restore HRLSC funding to its previous level, in today’s dollars, to enable it to once again meet its statutory mandate to provide direct legal services across the province. The gap is enormous: as noted above, it would take almost $2 million to fully restore the HRLSC to its 2008 funding level.
Conclusion
In 2008, amendments to the Human Rights Code gave Ontarians a reformed human rights system that, for the first time, allowed people who believed that they had experienced discrimination to have direct access to mediation and adjudication at a new human rights tribunal. The legislation enshrined an accessible dispute resolution system, designed to facilitate participation by self-represented parties. It was assumed, correctly, that most applicants would be self-represented when they filed their applications, and the statute guaranteed the right to make oral submissions before an application within the tribunal’s jurisdiction could be dismissed.
The legislation has not been amended. But today, the accessibility promised by those reforms appears to be largely undermined by the HRTO itself. After the imposition of onerous new filing requirements, thousands of applicants have abandoned their applications or had their applications dismissed without a hearing. The ramped-up number of HRTO-initiated dismissals has led to a clear inference that the HRTO is putting more effort into auditing its backlog looking for weakly-drafted applications, vulnerable to dismissal, than in moving cases appropriately forward to a merits hearing. The enormous increase in dismissals without a hearing since the HRTO was moved into Tribunals Ontario, and the deep drop in the number of substantive merit decisions seem to corroborate these conclusions.
There is something deeply wrong at a human rights tribunal when its backlog has increased twofold over time, despite a significant drop in incoming cases; when 93% of final decisions are no-hearing dismissals, mostly of aging cases in a multiyear backlog; when the great majority of those dismissals are because the applicant has given up after long periods of HRTO inactivity on their file; and when only 2.7% of all final decisions are substantive decisions after full consideration of the evidence of the parties.
Tribunal Watch Ontario asks: When will the Ontario government take effective steps to address the access to justice crisis at the Human Rights Tribunal?