Ontario Human Rights Commission supporting Pride Hamilton in tribunal against city and police

The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) says it will be in Pride Hamilton's corner for its tribunal complaint against the city and local police after violence broke out at the 2019 Pride festival.

The OHRC stated in a news release it supports Pride Hamilton's position that under-policing can be a form of discrimination against the LGBTQ community.

"Police services have an obligation to provide equitable services to LGBTQ2S+ communities even when uniformed officers are not welcomed at community events," read the statement.

The OHRC also stated it intervenes in a handful of cases across the province each year that advance an expansive interpretation of the code, establish important precedents that adopt OHRC policies, promote broader public change and pursue the public interest.

Wade Poziomka, a partner and human rights lawyer at Ross & McBride LLP who is representing Pride Hamilton, said the organization welcomes the OHRC's intervention.

He said the case affects "every community within the City of Hamilton who may experience under-policing as a result of grounds set out in the Ontario Human Rights Code."

Pride Hamilton filed the complaint with the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario asking for $600,000 in damages.

It said police discriminated against the organization by not protecting people at the Pride celebrations. It also complained about the mayor's comments defending the police response.

The complaint was actually filed on June 12, according to Pride, roughly one year after the Pride Hamilton festival at Gage Park was disrupted on June 15, 2019.

A religious group arrived with homophobic signs, joined by people associated with the yellow vest group that had been at city hall for several weekends. They were met with counter protesters who wore pink masks and used a large black curtain to shield the protesters from the view of the festival.

Violence erupted, injuring several people. Police arrested one protester, charged three counter-protesters and arrested one person who was later found to not be at the festival.

An independent review found the police response to the violence was "inadequate" and the lack of police preparation meant the service "failed to protect" festival attendees. It also had 38 recommendations for police.

Hamilton's police services board has since said it "sincerely and unreservedly apologizes" for what happened and that it will implement all 38 recommendations from the report.

A report in late 2020 showed police have acted on 34 of 38 recommendations.