Brandon Gailbraith has a criminal record including assault, break and enter and possession of a weapon and has been in and out of jail since his teens. He feared his record would limit job prospects but eventually found work in roofing construction in the Ottawa area. More than one million people in Ontario have criminal records; unemployment among them is around 50 per cent. Employment barriers are higher for Black and Indigenous people due to racism and systemic discrimination. Ontario laws and hiring practices allow discrimination against people with criminal records, creating long-term barriers after sentence completion. The John Howard Society of Ontario recommends expanding human-rights protections to reduce exclusion from the labour market.
Brandon Gailbraith has been in and out of jail since he was a teenager and has a criminal record ranging from assault to break and enter to possession of a weapon. So when it came time to turn his life around and find a job, the 32-year-old wasn't very optimistic about his prospects. "Having a criminal record, it just kind of takes a lot of options off [the table]," Gailbraith told CBC Toronto. His options were limited but eventually he was able to find work in construction in the Ottawa area, specifically in roofing.
More than one million people in Ontario have a criminal record, according to the province. The unemployment rate among them is around 50 per cent, according to Safiyah Husein, the John Howard Society of Ontario's (JHSO) director of policy. Finding a job can be even harder for those who are Black or Indigenous and have a criminal record, says Husein, who points to compounding issues such as racism and systemic discrimination.
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