If there is one thing to know about Renu Mandhane, it is that, a few years ago, she was the victim of a hit-and-run accident, in which her vehicle was struck and the offending motorist’s licence plate fell off in the process.

Mandhane assumed police would trace the plate back to the driver and immediately worried why someone would flee. Maybe the driver had no immigration status and might face deportation if found out, she told Rishi Malkani, her husband.

His reaction, according to Mandhane, went something like this: “Are you kidding me? Are you on his side? He hit your car and our child was in the car and he took off?”

The story underscores the empathy and compassion friends, colleagues and family say 38-year-old Mandhane — academic, lawyer, High Park-Junction resident, mother of two young boys, front line international human rights advocate — brings to her new job as the province’s top domestic rights watchdog, chief commissioner of the Ontario Human Rights Commission.

“It was that moment where I realized, wow, I’m hard-wired to really think about the underdog and the perspective of people who are less privileged than I am.”

Her brother, Piush Mandhane, an Edmonton pediatrician and medical researcher, says Renu “always had a sense of ethics and what is right and wrong. And she’s always been willing to stand up for what she believes in.

“I think Ontario couldn’t have got a better person,” he says. “That position comes with a lot of carrots, and then some sticks. I think she will know when to use which.”

Mandhane leaves her old job as executive director of the University of Toronto’s International Human Rights Program to take on her new role, beginning Monday.

During her time at the program, Mandhane edited a 2015 research paper on migrants to Canada with mental health issues who are subject to arbitrary imprisonment. It is a bleak assessment of how the country deals with these newcomers, and prompted calls for more humane treatment and an end to indefinite detention.

She also works with PEN International, and through the U of T rights program helped produce a 2015 research paper on freedom-of-speech challenges in India.

With her new role comes a public profile and the power to make change.

“I am sure she will inject excellent energy into that role and she will push for change,” says Audrey Macklin, a U of T law professor who sits on an advisory committee that oversees the program Mandhane ran. “None of this is expressing any judgment on predecessors, but I think Renu is not complacent and not comfortable with sitting back and taking it easy.”

An idealist, but practical, is how law school friend Maggie Wente, an aboriginal rights lawyer, describes Mandhane. She also believes Mandhane’s time with the U of T Faculty of Law has given her an insider’s perspective on the workings of institutions that are likely to find themselves on the receiving end of rights-based complaints.

Wente is also one of Ontario’s human rights commissioners. When Barbara Hall, who retired after nearly a decade as the chief commissioner, mentioned it was time to think about who would replace her, Wente thought of Mandhane and prodded her friend to apply.

Mandhane is conscious of her new profile and the responsibility that comes with it, yet she comes to it without pretension, and with a sense of humour. While the Star was interviewing Mandhane for this profile, a Conservative candidate had just been exposed for urinating in a coffee mug of a client’s kitchen, to which Mandhane said: “I can confirm that I don’t have a peegate in my background.”

Historically, notes Mandhane, the commission’s work has been done with a soft approach, where one can work behind the scenes and cajole people to do the right thing. That doesn’t always work.

“Some of this persistent discrimination, I think that you have to be willing at a certain point to say, you know what, the velvet glove has to come off,” says Mandhane.

“I want to take positions and be bold in advocating those positions.”

Mandhane says interim chief commissioner Ruth Goba got it right when she publicly made strong statements on the police practice of carding, or street checks, and racial profiling, and that commission staff were happy with the bold approach.

It is too early for Mandhane to say what changes she would like to make to the 54-year-old commission, but she is interested in looking at what role it might play on a national and international stage. She sees the commission as a “gold standard” leader on human rights “that could influence the work of a lot of other bodies.”

But to begin with, she plans on meeting with staff and doing a lot of listening and settling in to her new Dundas St. W. office.

Bay St. and beyond

Renu (pronounce RAY-new) Mandhane was born in Calgary, the second and last child of Jaman Mandhane, a petroleum engineer, and Nilima Mandhane, a bookkeeper. The couple immigrated to Canada from India, and expected Renu and older brother Piush to excel at whatever they chose to take on.

Calgary in the ’70s and ’80s came with challenges. So rare was a person who was not either white or aboriginal, says Mandhane, that strangers would ask her father to pose for photos. Finding a vegetarian restaurant that met her mother’s dietary choices proved near impossible. But in the city’s small yet tight knit South Asian community, the family found culture and support.

Jaman and Nilima adapted to Canadian ways and shed traditional beliefs and norms, such as arranged marriages for their children. Mandhane would have none of that, anyway. She recalls first hearing about that possibility for herself around the age of 8. “I remember just being really upset and feeling that that wasn’t fair, and why did they think that I would want that?”

Although it never came to a fight, it was just the kind of issue that suited Mandhane’s innate urge to stand up for the underdog.

Today, she recognizes what her parents went through in terms of adapting and raising children in a new culture and finds it “pretty remarkable.”

The family travelled together, often heading to India and exploring other parts of the world along the way. On these trips Mandhane saw injustice and inequity first hand, and took notice.

“She was always compassionate,” says her father. “Watching TV, you would see something like hunger somewhere in the world, and she would say we should do something for that cause, adopt a child from Ethiopia.”

While her parents believed a career in accounting and finance was best for her, Mandhane, with their full support, left home in 1995 with other plans. She earned a bachelor of arts degree at Queen’s University, where volunteer work at a sexual health resource centre piqued an interest in policy issues.

Law, which she studied next at the University of Toronto, seemed like a logical step in her academic life, although law in itself is not what drives her.

“Law is a great tool but I don’t think it’s the only tool, and I think there’s lots of flaws with the law,” she says. “Very legal thinking can sometimes be quite one-dimensional. I guess I would say I am not a lawyer’s lawyer.”

She was called to the Ontario bar in 2002 and a year later earned a Master of Laws from New York University.

At the time, she was also busy falling in love with Rishi Malkani. Both the children of immigrants and self-described Type A personalities, they shared progressive views and a love for many things, including sarcasm, inane TV and good music.

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They met at a party at XO Karaoke in Toronto’s Koreatown (Wonderwall, by Oasis, was involved) and married in 2005 at the Eglinton Theatre. Rishi, 39, is a partner at Deloitte, where he mostly does mergers and acquisitions. He’s also a diehard Pearl Jam fan, and when the band toured Canada, he and Renu followed them.

Mandhane articled at Torys, the blue-chip law firm, much to the delight of her parents.

“To them, with their immigrant background, for me to be at this Bay St. law firm, that was it. I was making six figures. I was 22 years old. And then I was like, yeah, I’m leaving.”

She announced she was going to work in criminal law, for a fraction of the money. “They just were like, why? Why are you doing this? For them it was so bizarre. I think it’s almost the privilege that we had growing up, that we could have other goals.”

For four years, she worked criminal cases before returning to U of T in an academic role.

Now with two boys, ages 6 and 2, the Pearl Jam road trip days are on hold for Rishi and Renu.

On a recent weeknight, the two are in the living room of their home, the kids fed and tucked in bed. Rishi, a Blue Jays fan, is checking the score on his phone.

“We like to think of ourselves,” begins Renu, and Rishi completes the sentence, tongue firmly in cheek, “as real rebels and counterculture. Don’t we come across as that?”

“Exactly,” laughs Renu.

Three pillars of the system

In 2008, Ontario’s human rights enforcement system was reconfigured and, in some ways, continues to find its footing.

The system is made up of three parts.

Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario

Accepts complaints — called applications — alleging discrimination and/or harassment in workplaces and other social settings, under grounds identified in the Human Rights Code, which include violations based on age, race, ethnicity, gender, disability and religion. The tribunal decides how to deal with a complaint. If mediation fails, a hearing is held. In cases where there is a finding of discrimination, the tribunal can order financial awards and other remedies, including reinstatement of employment and better workplace training around human rights.

Human Rights Legal Support Centre

Supports applicants making the complaints, free. The centre may offer help filling out a complaint and has lawyers who can represent applicants through mediation and hearings before the tribunal. One major issue identified in Andrew Pinto’s 2012 review was an inability to meet demands for service. The centre wasn’t intended to offer free, unlimited legal representation, but Pinto found the centre had trouble answering calls and very few applicants before the tribunal were represented by support centre lawyers. The numbers have since improved.

Ontario Human Rights Commission

The watchdog of human rights, the commission can intervene in individual cases, bring its own applications, work with employers to improve practices, conduct research, hold inquiries and deliver a public tongue lashing, as it has done recently around the issue of police carding and racial profiling. Pinto in 2012 recommended that the Commission engage in more litigation at the tribunal, be more accessible to the public and get more involved in the private employment sector.

Key rights moments

1950 — Ontario’s Conveyancing and Law of Property Act is amended to make it impossible for a property owner to require a buyer to agree to never sell, lease or rent to Jews, blacks or other people of colour. The case that prompted the change stemmed from a sale of a resort development near Grand Bend.

1961 — The Ontario Human Rights Commission replaces the Ontario Anti-Discrimination Commission, which was established in 1958. The watchdog agency falls under the Ministry of the Attorney General.

1962 — Ontario’s Human Rights Code comes into effect. It is seen as Canada’s first comprehensive human rights law.

1986 — Sexual orientation is brought into the mix of protected code grounds.

2003 — Following a groundbreaking Toronto Star investigation into race, policing and crime in Toronto that found patterns in police arrest and charge data of black people in certain circumstances being treated more harshly than white people, the commission holds an inquiry into the impacts of racial profiling in various aspects of life.

2006 — Commission partners with Toronto police and its civilian oversight board in a unique project aimed at resolving human rights complaints and working together to address discrimination in employment and service to the public. The project has mixed results. Toronto police ignore the commission’s advice that they track and analyze interactions with the public by race.

2008 — Ontario’s human rights system is overhauled. Three pillars are created. People now complain to the tribunal. The commission deals with big picture human rights issues and systemic forms of discrimination and harassment. A legal support centre is created.

2015 — Barbara Hall retires as chief commissioner after nearly a decade in the position. Ruth Goba, who took the seat on an interim basis until Renu Mandhane takes over on Monday, weighs in on police carding and street checks, telling a June meeting of the Toronto Police Services Board that the “community has spoken with one voice. Racial profiling in policing must end now.”

Sources: Ontario Human Rights Commission, Star archives