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 itsupports Pride Hamilton's position that under-policing can be a form of discrimination against the LGBTQcommunity.

"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 itintervenes 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'sintervention.

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 complaintwith the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario asking for $600,000 in damages.

It saidpolice discriminated against the organization by notprotecting people at the Pride celebrations. It alsocomplained about the mayor'scomments 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 severalweekends. 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, injuringseveral people. Police arrested one protester, charged three counter-protesters and arrested one personwho was later found to not be at the festival.

An independent reviewfound the police response to the violence was "inadequate" and thelack 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 itwill implement all 38 recommendations from the report.

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