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There are a couple of instances that come to mind. And every time I see and I look at
the progress that we've made, I remember those two instances. [Jean Augustine. Ontario
Fairness Commissioner] One of the very first was the fact that I went to one of the big
companies that I will not name at this point, and I passed all the little exams for a clerical
job. I had overseas, Cambridge overseas school certificate.
I had all kinds of graduation certificates, etc. And the little test that was given was
something that I passed. And when I went back after two weeks not hearing, to -- I went
back to inquire of the human resource whether I was going to get the job, they said to me,
"Yes you did pass all of the test. But we thought that you were not a good fit for our
organization."
And I still to this day think about this issue of good fit.
The second instance that I remember and I remember so vividly was seeing a sign on a
door and a dwelling house that had several rooms in it, and room for rent, and walking
up to the door, and the owner looking me right in the eye and says, "Yes, it's for rent,
but not to you."
And when I looked at him, he says, "Not to you. We don't rent to people -- to black
people." And I remember this to this day again. I had no recourse. Human rights, we're
talking now about 1960 and 1960, 1961. There was nowhere that I can go with this except
to take that sense of what was done to the spirit and have it, you know, churn and churn
and churn, not only within the self, but also within the gut.
And what those two opportunities or those two occasions did to my determination to make
this place that I had chosen to be home, to make this place a better place.
And so when the code came along, when we started discussing that Ontario was going to have
these -- this legislation that would speak to racism, discrimination, the ability of
individual to be a productive member, to participate, etc., we had dreams about what the code would
do. And at the same time, the passing of the code, to me it was an opportunity to say that
now there is some recourse.
Now a landlord cannot say this openly, that a human resource person cannot say this openly,
because what happened after that point, one was always questioning as to whether it was
my fault, whether it was -- that individual was allowed to say, "I don't give you
this job because of who you are," because it was quite clear when she said I was not
the right fit that she was really saying that my race, my colour, my gender I'm not too
sure, but was not in keeping with that organization's plan.