Recent Canadian statistics suggest that one in five citizens suffer from mental illness. This revelation led The Ontario Human Rights Commission to introduce a new set of guidelines on Wednesday June 18 sharing how to best handle issues related to the mentally ill. The new policy offers those dealing with mental illness, as well sat their employers, landlords, and other service providers “user-friendly” advice on how to best identify and combat rights violations. Chief Commissioner Barbara Hall told The Canadian Press “This policy is saying that people with mental health issues are protected under the human rights code. They have rights. Employers, service providers, landlords all have responsibilities and we need to understand those better and then we need to take action to remove the barriers.”
Individuals dealing with mental health issues are guaranteed equal rights and opportunities under Ontario’s Human Rights Code in areas such as jobs, housing and services. But the commission said many still con-tinue to face “considerable discrimination, stigma and social exclusion.” However, the reduction of mental health discrimination has drastically improved since the 1980s. In the 1986 edition of the Canadian Historical Review Angus Mclaren’s article, “The Creation of a Haven for ‘Human Thoroughbreds’: The Steriliza-tion of the Feeble‐Minded and the Mentally Ill in British Columbia”, brings to light the intense abuse the mentally ill and feeble-minded faced. Mclaren shares that Dr. H.A. Bruce, the lieutenant-governor of Ontario at the time, had brought forth the idea of a policy of sterilization in order to restrict the mentally ill from reproducing and protect society from being “condemed to labour to support the [mentally ill] who would be institutionalized.” Thankfully we live in a time where as Commissioner Hall stated, “all people with mental health or addiction disabilities have the same rights to be free from discrimination under the code.”
