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A woman in Thunder Bay decided to go to a local ServiceOntario to update her home address on her driver’s licence, after first checking the website to confirm the service location offered services in French.

A young person in custody contacted us last year to complain that he wasn’t able to vote in the federal election, although he had expressed his interest in voting to the youth facility’s staff members.

When new signs were installed at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry's Fish Culture Station in North Bay, some Francophone residents noticed something fishy - the signs were in English only.

With the current pandemic and the necessity to work from home, using conference call lines has become the norm in many organizations.

A group of Indigenous inmates complained to us that they were strip-searched before attending a smudging ceremony, leaving them feeling violated, discriminated against and targeted because of their Indigenous spirituality.

An inmate who uses a customized wheelchair to support his spine sought our help because he was being repeatedly transferred to a second institution without his chair.

An inmate complained to us after a sergeant at his facility penalized him by taking away 30 days of earned remission (time off his sentence) for refusing a transfer to another facility.

An education worker complained to our French Language Services Unit about a unilingual English survey about technology that was being conducted on behalf of the Ministry of Education.

A man visited a London DriveTest centre with his son, who wanted to take the theory component of the road test, and requested services in French.

A francophone man complained to our French Language Services Unit that he waited an hour on the phone for service in French when he called the disability eligibility decision unit of the Ministry of Children, Community and Social Services.

A woman complained to our French Language Services Unit that the Superior Court in Toronto could not serve her in person in French, resulting in a wasted trip and frustration.

A French-speaking woman sought our help after she encountered difficulties with the website of the Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office.

A man who was following the complaints process regarding a bilingual community legal clinic reached out to us after receiving an English-only version of the clinic’s complaints policy.

We received a complaint from a man who had recently moved to Canada. Although his motorcycle licence was valid in his home country, he was required to re-take the test in Ontario. The man had been assigned an English-speaking examiner for his motorcycle road test, even though he requested a French-speaking examiner in advance at a designated DriveTest centre.

An inmate sought our help in reaching the appropriate correctional officials after her father passed away and she could not get a response to her request to attend his funeral.

An inmate complained to us that staff at his correctional facility had taken his eyeglasses and refused to return them.

A woman who had been pursuing her case at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario for several years sought our help after she learned that the adjudicator assigned to her case was no longer able to continue.

In addressing the changes proposed by Bill 57, I will devote most of my comments to those amendments that affect the Office of the Ombudsman of Ontario, and the Ombudsman Act. Most notable among these are amendments that will expand the mandate of this office into areas that are presently within the mandate of my fellow Officers of the Legislature, the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth (Child Advocate) and the French Language Services Commissioner.

We referred a man to the right internal complaint mechanism at the Office of the Children’s Lawyer so he could voice concerns about delays in receiving documents and in setting his court date, all of which resulted in added legal costs for him.

A man serving weekend time in jail who required anxiety medication three times a day sought our help because the correctional facility would not give him his medication on Saturday mornings when he arrived, or on Sunday evenings before he left.