The Ombudsman investigates individual complaints and major systemic issues under the Ombudsman Act. Read the selected cases below and use the filters to search by year and / or topic.
November 24, 2020
24 November 2020
Our French Language Services Unit received two complaints from people who called the general DriveTest phone line to book driving tests and were obligated to listen to a 90-second message in English only.
September 29, 2020
29 September 2020
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.
August 28, 2020
28 August 2020
With the current pandemic and the necessity to work from home, using conference call lines has become the norm in many organizations.
July 31, 2020
31 July 2020
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.
May 29, 2020
29 May 2020
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.
March 27, 2020
27 March 2020
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.
January 31, 2020
31 January 2020
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.
November 29, 2019
29 November 2019
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.
October 31, 2019
31 October 2019
A French-speaking woman sought our help after she encountered difficulties with the website of the Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office.
September 30, 2019
30 September 2019
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.
August 30, 2019
30 August 2019
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.