Sunil Gurmukh

Counsel, Ontario Human Rights Commission, Toronto

Over the past year and a half, Sunil Gurmukh has shown passion and leadership in the fight to eliminate systemic discrimination of marginalized groups. Gurmukh was lead counsel for the OHRC in its inquiry into racial profiling and racial discrimination of Black people by the Toronto Police. He was the lead author of “A Collective Impact,” the OHRC’s interim report on the inquiry that was released in December 2018. The interim report revealed that a Black person was nearly 20 times more likely than a white person to be involved in a fatal shooting by the TPS. He was also lead counsel for the OHRC in Charter case Talos v. Grand Erie District School Board. The OHRC successfully challenged a provision of Ontario’s Human Rights Code that allowed employers to cut or reduce benefits to workers aged 65 and over. He is counsel for the OHRC in Al-Turki v. Ontario (Ministry of Transportation), a case currently before the HRTO that will affect thousands of refugees and their ability to obtain driver’s licences. His chapter in Irwin Law’s book Racial Profiling and Human Rights in Canada was published in October 2018.