A woman was paying $200 per month to Legal Aid for the services of a family law lawyer. After spending $3,600 and losing her case, she felt her lawyer had not adequately represented her. The lawyer agreed not to charge anything for his services and wrote to Legal Aid, asking that the woman’s money be returned.

A single mother with two daughters used Legal Aid for two family law matters in 2006. She had originally agreed to pay more than $6,000 in monthly installments, but stopped paying Legal Aid because she fired her lawyer and represented herself in court. In January 2010, when seeking financing for a new car, she was surprised to learn that Legal Aid had referred her case to a collection agency. She complained to the Ombudsman that Legal Aid had not brought this debt to her attention, and that she did not believe she owed the full $6,000. She did not know how she would be able to pay the outstanding debt, and she feared that the involvement of the collection agency could jeopardize her job in the financial sector, where she was required to pass a credit check.

A man complained to the Ombudsman on the day that his security guard licence was set to expire. He had passed the necessary exam and submitted his renewal application, but accidentally made his cheque out to the wrong provincial ministry.

The owner of a children’s dance studio contacted the Ombudsman after he learned that the Ministry had decided to open a Probation and Parole office in the same building as his studio.

An inmate called the Ombudsman because he was eligible for parole in one week and he was afraid his request for a parole hearing would not be submitted on time. His Institutional Liaison Officer had not met with him to begin the process, which takes four to six weeks. Ombudsman staff discovered that delays in processing parole hearing requests were routine at the institution.

An inmate who was suffering from psychological distress wrote to the Ombudsman for help. He had had mental and physical trauma many years before and felt his mental health concerns were not being addressed by his correctional facility.

An inmate who was being given methadone called the Ombudsman and reported that he had been accidentally given a double dose. Because such a high dose could potentially be fatal, he was taken to hospital as a precaution. The inmate complained that this caused him anxiety and discomfort and he wanted to make sure it would not happen again to him or any other inmate.

The mother of a developmentally delayed woman with severe intellectual and behavioural challenges contacted the Ombudsman on her daughter’s behalf in the fall of 2010. The woman had been institutionalized since she was seven years old. In 2008, when the facility she lived in was about to be closed, she was transferred to a group home.

A group of inmates complained to the Ombudsman that they had not received clean clothes for some time – in some cases over a month. The inmates were upset and some expressed concern that fights might break out over the issue.

A father contacted the Ombudsman out of frustration after trying in vain to find out from the Family Responsibility Office how much he owed in child support arrears. The debt was affecting his credit rating, but each time he contacted the FRO to clarify what he owed, he was given a different amount – ranging from $6,000 to $27,000. He feared that the FRO was attempting to get him to pay for a period when his child was living with him and he was not required to pay support.

An Ontario Works recipient applied for ODSP and had her application approved after an appeal. She was anxious for her ODSP benefits to start, as the extra funds and coverage available would assist her in paying expenses related to her ongoing battle with cancer, including chemotherapy treatments.

A woman entered into an agreement with ODSP in 2005 whereby ODSP deducted $240 from her monthly benefit cheque to pay her electricity bill. The agreement was supposed to last one year, but ODSP refused the woman’s requests to end it. She also complained that the monthly deductions had been inconsistent.

A woman contacted the Ombudsman after she received copies in the mail of two decisions by the Social Benefits Tribunal on appeals she had filed. She was shocked to read in the documents that she had been unwell on the day of the hearings and thus did not attend.

In March 2010, the wife of a Canadian soldier serving in Afghanistan moved to a new home with her daughter and father. Their first two Hydro One bills were small, manageable amounts. But their third bill was $1,500.

When a Hydro One representative called to discuss upgrades on her “commercial” property, a woman learned that it had been mistakenly charging her commercial rates for her residential electricity. She advised Hydro One of the error and it agreed to send an agent to visit her property. Hydro One also informed her she had been overcharged $500 because of the mistake.

A father turned to the Ombudsman after delays in his request to the Registrar General to make changes to his two daughters’ birth certificates. The parents’ names on the certificates needed to be amended to match the parents’ passports. This was necessary for the family to apply for visas for a trip to India to attend a family wedding. They had already spent $7,500 in booking the trip.

A stay-at-home mom decided to upgrade her skills to re-enter the workforce. At her local employment assessment centre, she was told she would be eligible for funding for community college through the Ontario Skills Development Program (OSDP) until October 2009.

A father sought the Ombudsman’s help after he was billed twice for an online request for his daughter’s birth certificate in 2009. When he initially filled out the online form, the session had timed out and he could not confirm that his payment was accepted. He had to log in again and, thinking that there might have been a problem with the credit card he used the first time, he used another one.

A woman complained to the Ombudsman after she received a bill for $1,879 in co-payment charges from the hospital where her 94-year-old mother had been for about a month before she died in April 2010.

An elderly man who travelled to China frequently to visit his family was notified by OHIP in May 2010 that he was no longer eligible for health coverage because he did not meet the residency requirements – i.e., he had to be present in Ontario for 153 days in a 12-month period.

A woman who was diagnosed with two potentially fatal aortic aneurysms in April 2010 was told she needed surgery immediately, but the procedure was not available in Canada.

In October 2010, the Ombudsman received complaints from two families whose children were receiving human growth hormone medication through the Hospital for Sick Children. The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care’s Exceptional Access Program required that approval for funding the drug be obtained every year.

A man who had been injured at work when he was 29 years old had his loss-of-earnings benefits cut off by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) in 2001 because his employer had offered him potentially suitable work. He continued to have severe pain and was unable to work.

A community college student was told that if she completed her program with sufficiently high marks, she would be eligible to have a portion of her student loans forgiven under the Ontario Student Opportunity Grant program, as she is a single mother of four children.

A man in his eighties who had a record of good driving for more than 68 years was trying to complete the requirements for his driver’s licence renewal. He complained to the Ombudsman about a delay in the Ministry of Transportation’s review of the results of tests he had been required to undergo by an ophthalmologist, gerontologist, and occupational therapist, due to problems with his peripheral vision.