2016

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Guard let down

A man who needed to renew his Ontario Security Guard licence for work contacted our Office for help in speeding up the process with the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Special(ist) case

A transgender man complained to our Office because he was having difficulty obtaining an updated birth certificate from the Registrar General.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

New identity

After living on the streets for many years, a man sought our help in obtaining valid identification so he could apply for full-time work.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Sorry situation

A man with a visual impairment complained to our Office that an LCBO cashier would not sell him wine unless his 19-year-old son, who was not making a purchase but only accompanying him to provide assistance, showed identification.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Costly mistakes

After members of her family complained to our Office, we discovered the OPGT had made numerous errors in managing a woman’s affairs – failing to pay her mortgage and utilities for several months.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Signal co-ordination

After narrowly escaping being hit by an Ontario Northland Railway train near her home, a woman requested an automatic signal be installed to prevent future incidents.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

System error

After a 30-day suspension, a woman visited a ServiceOntario office and paid the $150 fee to have her licence reinstated.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Bureaucratic brake

A senior complained that after he sent a medical report to the Ministry as required for his driver’s licence, he was told it could not be found and he would have to submit it again.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Welcome home

A senior contacted our Office after restrictions were placed on his visits with his wife at her long-term care home, after he raised concerns with a nurse about his wife’s care.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Fire protection

A man whose home and important documents were destroyed by fire complained that he was having trouble renewing his Ontario health card.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Retroactive relief

After the Trillium Drug Program denied a woman drug benefits that she had previously received, our staff raised the case with a senior analyst at the Ministry, who found the information she had submitted about her private insurer’s drug coverage had been inconsistent.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Finding compassion

A woman complained to our Office on behalf of her 34-year-old daughter, who requires a specially-made drug at a cost of $200 per month.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Timely medicine

A mother whose son has a developmental disability and is medically fragile complained that her son’s medication costs were no longer being covered since he had been placed in a group home funded by the Ministry of Community and Social Services.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Unfinished business

A man complained to our Office about the WSIB after he had not received an update on his compensation application for almost a year.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Billing bungle

A man complained after he received a municipal hydro bill of $1,300, when his normal monthly bill was around $29.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Fee factor

A homeowner complained that a $1,950 fee he paid to make a severance application was not refunded when his application was denied.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Snow problem

A man told our Office he had tried for 10 years to find out why the municipality removed the snow from the sidewalk in front of his neighbours’ homes, but not his.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Distance discount

A distance education student complained he was asked to pay fees for various services only available on campus, such as student lifestyle fees.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Admit one

A would-be Bachelor of Education student complained that he was denied admission because of a mistake in his application due to a miscommunication with the university.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Fail safe

A student complained that he had failed a course due to false information provided to his professor by a teaching assistant.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Second chance

A PhD student who was given no opportunity to repeat his final exam when he failed on his first try after 16 months of course work complained to our Office that he had hit a dead end in the university’s appeal process.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Teachable moment

After a teacher-in-charge kept a student out of class for more than two hours over an incident, the student’s mother complained to us about the board’s response to her concerns.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Better, not late

The mother of a kindergarten student with special needs complained that her son’s bus was repeatedly late and that he had once been dropped off at the wrong address.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

The safer way

The mother of a Grade 4 student was concerned for her son’s safety because he had to cross a busy intersection on his walk to school.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

No place like home

A mother of a teenage boy with autism sought our Office’s help after her son was restricted to 45 minutes of school per day due to behavioural issues.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Cars curbed

A woman complained to us after trying for months to get a school board to respond to her safety concerns about vehicles regularly driving up onto a curb on school property near an entrance for young children.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Back in action

An Everest College student who was away from the school on medical leave when it abruptly closed was turned down for assistance in enrolling in a new program because his college record did not list him as an active student at the time of the closure.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Too far to go

A mother who had been commuting two hours every day to attend classes at an Everest College campus applied for funding to resume her studies elsewhere after the college closed.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Buy the book

A student who bought $1,000 worth of textbooks for her studies at the suddenly-closed Everest College complained that foot-dragging by officials at the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities caused her to miss a deadline to receive a 60% refund on the books, which were now worthless to her.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Pressed for cash

A college student who was taking “compressed” courses over the summer questioned why she didn’t qualify for full-time OSAP funding, as her college had previously determined that her compressed course load made her eligible.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

No answer

A woman on a waiting list for a popular, limited-enrolment college program called our Office for help when she could not get any information from the college about whether she had been accepted.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Painful delay

A woman who was seriously injured in a car accident complained that she waited seven months to receive her application for ODSP benefits.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Held at the border

A mother whose support payments from her ex-husband were collected through an enforcement agency in the U.S. complained that the FRO would not release any of it to her because it didn’t have the necessary documentation from a U.S. court.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Follow the money

A mother of two complained that FRO officials had not done enough to collect the more than $30,000 in support owed by her ex-husband, even though they knew where he worked.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

An arresting mistake

A father contacted us from jail after he was arrested for failing to pay child support arrears to the Family Responsibility Office.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Justice delayed

An inmate complained that he had sat in jail for days after becoming eligible for parole because a parole hearing had not been scheduled for him.

November 8, 2016

8 November 2016

Best defence

A senior who was charged with threatening police complained that Legal Aid Ontario told him he was no longer eligible for their services after the Crown decided it would not seek to put him in jail if convicted.

October 19, 2016

19 October 2016

Outside the zone

A father contacted us when the principal at his daughter’s school told him she could no longer attend the school, since the family lived outside the catchment area.

September 30, 2016

30 September 2016

Uncredited

A man complained to us that he received a water bill and a late payment penalty even though he had a $600 credit with the utility. Our staff contacted the municipality and discovered that the man’s original account had been closed and a new account had been set up without the credit being transferred over.

August 31, 2016

31 August 2016

Rental funding issues

A woman applied for Ontario Works benefits and was told she qualified for $1,850 to cover the first and last month's rent payments for an apartment she was moving into in August.

August 31, 2016

31 August 2016

A matter of exposure

A student complained that one of his female classmates was refused entry into class for having her shoulders exposed.

August 31, 2016

31 August 2016

Entry Prohibited

A woman complained to us after she and her husband received a ‘Notice of Prohibition of Entry’ from a board in October 2012, with no end date or written rationale provided.

July 29, 2016

29 July 2016

A processing predicament

A woman complained to us after her acceptance into a university program through the Ontario Universities' Application Centre (OUAC), was somehow not processed, meaning she lost her spot and was put on a wait list.

July 29, 2016

29 July 2016

No parking

A ​woman who was working temporarily in Ontario and renting a house with no private parking complained to us when the municipality denied her a street parking permit because her vehicle had out-of-province plates.

June 30, 2016

30 June 2016

Taking the long way home

A mother felt that her daughter's school board didn't follow its own rules after she tried to appeal a change to her daughter's school bus route, which effectively doubled the amount of time her daughter spent on the bus.

May 31, 2016

31 May 2016

Bus stop safety concerns

A parent complained to our office after a school board decided to move their child's bus stop 300 metres to a busier intersection.

April 29, 2016

29 April 2016

Clarifying our jurisdiction

A town clerk contacted our office after the local council, which was considering establishing a code of conduct, expressed the view that it did not need to appoint an Integrity Commissioner, because any complaints related to the code of conduct could be forwarded to the Ombudsman for review.

April 29, 2016

29 April 2016

A learning experience

A would-be Bachelor of Education student complained that he was denied admission because he included a one-on-one teaching experience in his application - he said the university did not make it clear that he should not do so.

April 29, 2016

29 April 2016

Clarifying the process

A parent complained to our office after the school board looked into her conflict-of-interest complaint about two trustees who participated in decisions to close a local high school.

March 31, 2016

31 March 2016

Rural bus route dilemma

A woman contacted our Office when she discovered the school board would only bus her granddaughter to a school that was more than twice as far away as the next closest option.

March 31, 2016

31 March 2016

Denied assistance

A homeless teenager who could not live with either parent was denied assistance through Ontario Works and was not provided with anything in writing about how to appeal the decision.

February 29, 2016

29 February 2016

Calculated distance

We received a complaint that several students in the same neighbourhood were deemed ineligible for busing despite believing they lived within the school's distance requirements policy, and that the board would not provide the walk distance calculation to the complainant or other parents.

February 29, 2016

29 February 2016

Lack of clear mechanism

We received complaints of alleged violations of the councillor code of conduct in a township.

January 29, 2016

29 January 2016

Home school solution

A teenage boy with autism who was only permitted to attend class for 45 minutes a day due to aggression issues was refusing to return to school because of an incident when police were called.