Ontario Human Rights tribunal starts hearing on allegations of racial profiling

The Human Rights Tribunal of  Ontario yesterday commenced hearing from migrant workers from Jamaica and other Caribbean countries who allege they were racially targeted by the Ontario Provincial Police as part of  a DNA sweep in connection to a 2013 sexual assault investigation.

The 54 applicants argue that the indiscriminate manner in which the DNA sweep was conducted violated their rights under Ontario's Human Rights Code. 

The hearing is expected to last seven days.

Ontario police swabbed 96 migrant farm workers from mostly Caribbean countries working on at least five farms in Elgin County in 2013 as officers searched for a suspect in a sexual assault. 

But human rights lawyer Shane Martínez, who is representing the migrant workers pro bono, says most workers who were swabbed did not fit the physical description of  the suspect except for the colour of  their skin.

The sexual assault survivor told police her attacker was muscular and possibly in his mid-to-late 20s. 

She said she was confident the perpetrator was a migrant worker and believed she had seen him near her home in rural southwestern Ontario.

Jamaican Leon Logan who is the lead complainant yesterday told the tribunal that the whole process made him feel sad, defeated and humiliated.

Mr. Logan said he didn't know what consequences he might face if  he refused due to his precarious immigration status in the country.

Christopher Diana, a lawyer for the solicitor general, said the voluntary DNA canvass was crucial in the arrest — and later conviction — of  Henry Cooper, a migrant worker from Trinidad. 

He received a seven-year sentence.