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Alan Borovoy: Well of course, the more experience you have, the more you learn about what's
needed. One of the areas at the time, this -- now I'm talking mid 60s -- we learned that
-- well, there was a group of East Indian doctors. Doctors from India, Pakistan, could
not get licenses to practice medicine in Ontario. They weren't even permitted to write the examinations
where they might qualify.
And we looked at the Code as it was then formulated, and there was no provision in the Code dealing
with the licensing of professionals and others, so that if discrimination were committed there,
that was one area of the public market not covered by the Code. So we started to agitate
for a change.
We approached the Human Rights Commission, asking it to use its good offices to investigate
it. And then we started to agitate for legislative change. We kept blowing up the problem. And
I can remember that the commission in 1967 was playing host to the International Convention
of Human Rights Commissions in North America. And this was our centennial year for Canada.
And they had invited Mr. Justice Bora Laskin of the Ontario Court of Appeal to be a keynote
speaker. And he telephoned me one day. I had been a student of his. And he asked me to
come down to his office and tell him what I was doing in the field.
Well I made a special pitch for plugging this loophole in the Human Rights Code. For me,
this was -- this had its special charm because there I was sitting in his office. I was holding
forth and he was taking notes. It was a turnabout from what I used to experience at law school
with him. But it was a -- it was a lovely experience. And he made a very forceful speech
advocating that change in the law.
Not long afterwards, the Human Rights Code was amended to include that provision.