The Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) was established In the early 1960s alongside the Ontario Human Rights Code.
The purpose of the OHRC is to promote and enforce human rights in Ontario by breaking down long lasting structures of inequality and discrimination through education, policy, public inquiries, and litigation.
The Government of Ontario enacted the first Human Rights Code in Canada in 1962, which states that "every person is free and equal in dignity and rights without regard to race, creed, colour, nationality, ancestry or place of origin."
This Code marked a shift in Canadians speaking of rights as human rights rather than civil rights and it is often remembered as the beginning of Canada's rights revolution.
In the Spring of 1944, the province of Ontario passed the first legislation in Canada that was entirely focused on anti-discrimination.
Ontario's 1944 Racial Discrimination Act prohibited any signs, symbols, publications, or any other representation of discrimination based on race or religion.
This policy, approved by the Ontario Human Rights Commission, replaces the Policy on creed and the accommodation of religious observances (1996) and protects the right to be "treated equally based on creed, and to freely hold and practice creed beliefs of one's choosing" and protects the right to be free from religious or creed-based pressure.