Lawyers for Major League Baseball, the Cleveland Indians team and Rogers Communications have struck out in their attempt to have a discrimination claim thrown out on jurisdictional grounds.

The claim, lodged by activist Douglas Cardinal, alleges that Cleveland’s team name and mascot are offensive and discriminatory.

Cardinal won an interim decision allowing the case to move forward.

No date has been set for a hearing before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario.

Cardinal has argued that the use of the Cleveland team name “Indians” and the “Chief Wahoo” logo during games at the Rogers Centre amount to discrimination under the Ontario Human Rights Code.

The complant seeks to bar the Cleveland Indians from being able to use their team name or wear specific logos at major league baseball games played in Toronto.

“As an Indigenous person, I am encouraged that the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal has accepted jurisdiction over my complaint and agrees that it can proceed to a hearing,” Cardinal said in a prepared statement.

“Unfortunately, the consciousness of genocide and apartheid continues to be fostered by the insensitive use of demeaning and degrading symbols, mocking indigenous peoples,” Cardinal said. “This must cease in order for reconciliation to have any meaning and substance.”

The case made the news last fall, when an Ontario Superior Court judge ruled the Cleveland team could use its controversial name and logo hours before a playoff game against the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre.

At the time, a lawyer for the Cleveland team said Cardinal’s bid amounted to asking a court for censorship.

A lawyer for MLB questioned why Cardinal was bringing his injunction forward while the Blue Jays were in the playoffs.

Tribunal adjudicator Jo-Anne Pickel ruled on May 23 that Cardinal did have standing to bring the case forward.

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“If the applicant was either not indigenous, not a baseball fan, and not otherwise interested in attending games at the Rogers Centre, my finding on the issue of standing would have been different,” Pickel wrote.

“In my view, the applicant has asserted a sufficient personal interest to have standing to bring this application.”