Does A School Board Provide Services To A Parent?

In MM v Thames Valley District School Board, 2022 HRTO 1431, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario (the "Tribunal") recently dismissed an application brought by a mother against a school board where the mother alleged that the school board had discriminated against her on the basis of her family status and disability. The Tribunal held that the school board did not have a service relationship with the parent, and therefore could not have breached its duty under the Human Rights Code (the "Code") to not discriminate in the provision of a service.

The alleged discrimination involved a "communication ban" imposed by the school board, restricting the mother's communications to written exchanges with the principal, as a result of heated telephone disputes arising from the mother's desire to transfer her son to a different school, the school's boundary changes, French-language instruction, and the mother's perception that the school was paying insufficient attention to