personal characteristic

A personal characteristic is a quality that a person has. A personal characteristic can be something that is important to your sense of self. And it’s usually something that you cannot change about yourself.

Ontario’s Human Rights Code protects people from being treated unfairly because they have certain personal characteristics. These are sometimes called “protected grounds”.

There are 17 personal characteristics protected by the Human Rights Code, related to:

age
race
disability
religion
sex and gender
sexual orientation
family and marital status

Two personal characteristics are only protected in certain situations. These are:

getting government income supports (housing only)
having a record of offences (employment only)