Petition

I am a Canadian citizen, having immigrated to Canada eleven years ago with my wife and daughter.
After living under Ceausescu's Communist Party dictatorship, we came in the province of Ontario with great hopes of a better life and future for our daughter, but we have been very disappointed.

When the Harris government came to power in 1995, I was a professional landed immigrant on
welfare engaged in a volunteer placement designed to lead to full employment at the Ministry of
Environment. Although I received a successful assessment and I signed an agreement for one of four
Systems Support Officer available positions, the Ministry hired someone else and directed me to an
immigration agency to find a job. I was by then 50, and that placement had been intended to help me
get off welfare. Later, the Harris government repealed the "Employment Equity Commission", and,
ironically, pretended that it has created the workfare for helping people on welfare get jobs!

This is a clear case of discrimination in employment against the grounds of ethnic and place of
origin, citizenship, age, and receipt of public assistance. Some of these grounds were invoked against
me by some co-workers who harassed and treated me like an intruder immigrant and Romanian virus
into their workplace. One of them told me quite angrily: "It is not your fault that you came here, but
you have to leave". He gave me then a piece of paper with the name an immigration agency telling
me to go there if I wanted a job. Also, the Harris government came out at that time with the ideas of
the "Common Sense Revolution" which conveyed a discriminatory policy towards immigrants and the
poor. I have tried to resolve my case by complaining to the Ontario Human Rights Commission (OHRC) and the Ombudsman, but without success so far.

Initially, my case had been investigated at the Ombudsman office, but the Deputy Minister under the
Harris government was not willing to co-operate for and the ministry refused to rehire me. But,
although I complained many times that my human rights have been violated, the investigator ignored
my complaints. However, the former Ombudsman acknowledged in her decision of January 1998 that:
"the Ontario Human Rights Commission is the proper authority to investigate complaints about
discrimination and it is the most appropriate body to deal with your concerns. It was for this reason
that your complaints about discrimination were not included in our investigation into the actions of
the Ministry of Environment". The former Ombudsman wrote further that: "If you have a new
complaint about an organization that falls within our jurisdiction, we will review it".

The big problem is that the Commission mishandled my case and made a flawed decision that
covered up the Harris government's discriminatory policy implemented at its government offices.
Having a right of reconsideration within 15 days and realizing that nobody could stop the
Commission from upholding its unfair decision, I complained in time directly to the Ombudsman.
But, despite my right of reconsideration and my repeated appeals, the new appointed Ombudsman is
refusing to investigate the Commission's flawed decision. This is surely an obstruction of justice.

That discrimination ruined my professional career, our family life, and the prospects of my daughter.
Because of our ongoing problems my daughter dropped out of high school almost five years ago.
Now, she is isolated and struggling with severe depression. This is not the life and future that we
expected to build for our daughter in this country!