Blue Jays Win: Applicant’s “Bald Allegations” = No Discrimination Case
Many in Canada and across the world were captivated in the fall of 2025 by the Toronto Blue Jays fantastic efforts to get to and almost win the World Series. (Some, but not all of us, are also over the loss in Game 7). The baseball team was the subject of an interesting legal claim issued in January 2026.
In Ali v. Roger Blue Jays Baseball Partnership, 2026 HRTO 105, the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario considered three allegations of employment discrimination filed by Mr. Ali, who had previously applied for different positions with the team. The Blue Jays successfully defended against all of the complaints, which were dismissed on the basis of being untimely and lacking any factual basis to support claims of discrimination. The Tribunal’s decision provides helpful guidance on what is and what is not properly the basis for an Application under the Ontario Human Rights Code.
As an initial matter, the Tribunal noted that all Applications need to be both: (1) timely, meaning they are filed within one year of the last alleged act of discrimination; and (2) particularized, meaning that they describe specific actions or inactions of the responding party which could qualify as discrimination under the Code.
After the initial intake stage of Mr. Ali’s Application, he was asked to make written submissions to address the issues of timeliness and the required particulars alleging discrimination.
At the time of the Application being filed, the last employment application which Mr. Ali had been denied was 379 days earlier, meaning it was outside of the statutory one-year time limit. While the Tribunal does have scope to extend time limits in cases of good faith delay (such as incapacity), there was no submission to support the delay being in good faith. Instead, there was simply a claim that the case involved an allegation described as “historic behaviour”. None of this justified finding that part of the case timely.
The case also involved two timely claims of discrimination, where the Applicant before the Tribunal has been unsuccessful within the one-year period of filing his Tribunal claim. That was not, however, found to be a basis to justify a human rights inquiry without further details of alleged discrimination, none of which could be provided.
The Tribunal’s decision emphasizes the principle established in prior decisions, which is that human rights laws are not in place in order to enforce a “general power to deal with allegations of unfairness”. Any such unfair treatment is not, in the legal sense, discrimination. For a case to even involve a discrimination claim, the Applicant needs to allege unfair treatment based on one or more of the grounds protected under the Code, such as race, gender or disability.
It is not enough for an Applicant in an human rights case to assert that they have an enumerated group and have received adverse treatment at the hands of a responding party. To come within the Tribunal’s jurisdiction, the Applicant must provide some factual basis which could link the respondent’s conduct to their Code-enumerated grounds.
In the specific case, the Tribunal held that the Application involved nothing more than “bald allegations” which appeared to be nothing more than speculations and accusations. Simply claiming that the respondent made an adverse decision (not to hire him) was not sufficient to allow the case to proceed before the Tribunal.
Takeaway for Employers
This case highlights the importance of closely reviewing discrimination allegations. While the Tribunal does have extensive powers to review claims of discrimination, an Application needs to be properly grounded in facts which connect any allegations of adverse treatment to grounds which are protected by human rights laws. In this specific case, the employer and their counsel properly and successfully challenged an attempt to claim discrimination without any supporting facts being presented.