TORONTO - Ontario's Human Rights Commission is dealing with a mounting backlog of 1,200 cases and is asking the province for more cash to help clear the logjam, Commissioner Barbara Hall said Thursday after tabling her annual report.
Complaints are piling up at the commission, with many taking more than a year to resolve, she said. The commission ended the year with a backlog of some 700 cases, but that number now exceeds 1,200.
Commission staff say they have asked the province to more than double the number of commission investigators from 37 to 77, at a cost of $80,000 per inspector, or $3.2 million in total.
"The backlog has been growing gradually over the last few years,'' Hall said. "It's a result of resources staying the same and the number of cases increasing.''
The long-awaited overhaul of the commission has led recently to uncertainty and higher staff turnover, exacerbating the backlog, Hall said.
The average age of an active case is 16 months, which is up from the year before, Hall's report stated. The bulk of complaints received by the commission involved discrimination on the basis of disability or race.
"We're working hard to address it,'' Hall said, adding the commission is trying to "streamline'' its complaints process. "We're also in discussions with the ministry about some additional resources.''
The commission is in the process of being overhauled following legislation passed in December which shifts responsibility for complaints to the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal.
Attorney General Michael Bryant has said the new law will reduce the growing backlog of cases and address long-standing inefficiencies in the 40-year-old system.
Bryant was unavailable to comment Thursday, but ministry spokesman Brendan Crawley said the province boosted the commission's funding to a record level in the last budget, including $8 million over the next three years to help move to the new system.
"We believe the new funding, combined with the new system, will address the backlog issue once and for all,'' Crawley said.
But critics say the growing backlog means justice is being denied to hundreds, and should be another wake-up call for the government.
"We are in a crisis mode,'' said Anita Bromberg, director of legal affairs with B'nai Brith. "The system is in a mess and this is just one more report reflecting our own concerns.''
Everyone agrees the system needs to be reformed, Bromberg said.
But the changes introduced by the government will only worsen the backlog because people can take their complaints straight to the tribunal without having them mediated through the commission first, she said.
An extra $3 million to clear the current backlog isn't going to do it, Bromberg said.
"What we don't need are Band-Aid solutions,'' she said. "Rather than throwing money at it ... the best solution would be to step back and look at the issues.''
Opposition leaders say the backlog is justice delayed, which is akin to justice denied. Conservative Leader John Tory said the province should at least consider putting the extra cash into the system to stabilize it and help clear the backlog.
"If you're going to eliminate a backlog ... it means that you do have to invest some additional resources,'' he said.
"If we believe in the human rights system and think people are entitled to justice within a reasonable period of time, then somebody is going to have to come forward with a plan as opposed to hiding their head in the sand and hoping all this goes away.''
NDP Leader Howard Hampton said the province must increase the number of investigators employed by the commission and "stop fiddling around'' with trying to privatize parts of the system.
"People are not being treated fairly,'' Hampton said. "They're not receiving justice -- they're getting a lot of excuses.''
