She/Her
Patricia DeGuire is the Chief Commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. She is a Black woman who is committed to public service, mentoring, coaching, and legal education. She is a professional adjudicator, arbitrator, mediator, and coach. She is a constitutional law scholar, holds a Fellow of Chartered Insurance Professionals of Canada – Claims Major, and is co-author and co-editor of the first Canadian Insurance Dictionary.
Patricia was a Deputy Judge with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, SCC Division. For over 25 years, she has served on provincial and federal tribunals, including as vice-chair at the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, the Ontario Labour Relations Board/Pay Equity Hearings Tribunal, and the Immigration Appeal Division/Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. She has also held senior leadership roles with JusticeNet, Legal Aid Ontario, the Ontario Bar Association (OBA), the Canadian Bar Association (CBA), and the Women’s Law Association of Ontario (WLAO). Patricia was a member of the Canadian Association of Black Lawyers (CABL), the OBA, the Law Society of Upper Canada (LSUC), and WLAO mentorship programs and is a mentor and coach for many youths and adults in the legal and other professions. She has written thousands of decisions of which less than a dozen have been successfully appealed.
Patricia served in leading roles with BlackNorth Initiative and is a founder of the CABL, the Black Law Students’ Association of Canada (BLSAC), and two scholarships at Windsor Law. She also was a frequent lecturer at the Organization of Commonwealth Caribbean Bar Associations International Law Forum and with the Faculty of Society of Ontario Adjudicators and Regulators. She is the founder of the Forum for Education for Marginalized Youths and speaks often to students at all levels of schools, and the first female scout leader in 17th Humber (GTA).
Patricia’s many career honours include the BLSA Canada 2024 Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2021 Impact Award, the CBA 2020 Touchstone Award, the CBA RARE Find in April 2012, the OBA Distinguished Service Award in 2020, and CABL Mentorship Award in 2018. She also received Legal Aid Ontario’s 2007 GEM Award for outstanding public service for providing access to justice for low-income individuals and communities and the 2006 LSUC Lincoln Alexander Award. In 2008, BLSA Canada named the cup for the Julius Alexander Isaac Diversity Moot in her honour – the Patricia DeGuire Diversity Moot Cup. Patricia was called to the Ontario Bar in 1993. She was honoured with the designation King’s Counsel in 2023.
