Equality in Canada
A tale of non-normative groups struggling with grounds of discrimination
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1066Keywords:
Grounds, equality, discrimination, families, CanadaAbstract
This article intends to address the limits associated with a rigid grounds-based approach to equality, requiring claimants to categorize their identity within an enumerated ground to “deserve” the protection of the equality guarantee. To this end, I first shed light on the irreconcilability of rigid grounds with post-structuralist accounts of identity, and then lay claim to an approach to equality that extends its reach to fluid, intersectional groups. Thereafter, taking Canada as a case study, I parse out the Canadian equality jurisprudence, particularly the cases offering an analysis of the aforementioned grounds. I then move to sketch out two proposals to overcome the risks associated with the current equality jurisprudence, by focusing on marital status discrimination. I ultimately offer a cursory overview of the complex interplay between approaches to equality and the organization of interest groups, and illustrate the issues around the organization of “post-identity groups”.
Downloads
Metrics
Downloads:
PDF 503
References
Alberta Law Reform Institute, 2018. Property Division: Common Law Couples and Adult Interdependent Partners. Final Report 112. Alberta Law Reform Institute.
Appiah, A., 1992. In my Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture. London: Methuen.
Arthurs, H., and Arnold, B., 2005. Does the Charter Matter? Review of Constitutional Studies [online], 11(1), 37-117. Available from: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3012/f6d13e698dc467af46e2461a98559df33247.pdf [Accessed 19 July 2019].
Battams, N., 2018. A Snapshot of Family Diversity in Canada [online]. Ottawa: Statistical Snapshots. The Vanier Institute of the Family. February. Available from: https://vanierinstitute.ca/snapshot-family-diversity-canada-february-2018/ [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Boyd, J.P., 2017. Polyamory in Canada: Research on an Emerging Family Structure [online]. Ottawa: The Vanier Institute of the Family. April. Available from: https://vanierinstitute.ca/polyamory-in-canada-research-on-an-emerging-family-structure/ [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Bridgeman, J., 2013. Relational Vulnerability, Care and Dependency. In: J. Wallbank and J. Herring, eds., Vulnerabilities, Care and Family Law. Abingdon: Routledge.
British Columbia Law Institute, 1998. Report on Recognition of Spousal and Family Status [online]. Vancouver: British Columbia Law Institute. Available from: http://www.bcli.org/sites/default/files/5-Report-Report_on_Recognition_of_Spousal_and_Family_Support.pdf [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Butler, J., 1990. Gender Trouble. Abingdon: Routledge.
Cossman, B., and Fudge, J., eds., 2002. Privatization, Law and the Challenge to Feminism [online]. University of Toronto Press. Available from: https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442678774 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Cossman, B., and Ryder, B., 2001. What is Marriage-Like Like? The Irrelevance of Conjugality. Canadian Journal of Family Law [online], 18(2), 269-326. Available from: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=2376&context=scholarly_works [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Cossman, B., and Ryder, B., 2017. Beyond “Beyond Conjugality”. Canadian Journal of Family Law [online], 30(2), 227-263. Available from: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3111872 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Eisen, J., 2013. On Shaky Grounds: Poverty and Analogous Grounds under the Charter. Canadian Journal of Poverty Law, 2(2), 1-33.
Eskridge, W., 2002. Some Effects of Identity-Based Social Movements on Constitutional Law in the Twentieth Century. Michigan Law Review [online], 100, 2063-2184. Available from: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/fss_papers/3767 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Faraday, F., Denike, M., and Stephenson, M.K., eds., 2006. Making Equality Rights Real: Securing Substantive Equality under the Charter. Toronto: Irwin Law.
Fineman, M.A., 2008. The Vulnerable Subject: Anchoring Equality in the Human Condition. Yale Journal of Law & Feminism [online], 20(1), 1-23. Available from: http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjlf/vol20/iss1/2 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Fineman, M.A., 2010-2011. The Vulnerable Subject and the Responsive State. Emory Law Journal [online], vol. 60, 251-275. Available from: http://law.emory.edu/elj/_documents/volumes/60/2/symposium/fineman.pdf [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Fineman, M.A., 2012. “Elderly” as Vulnerable: Rethinking the Nature of Individual and Societal Responsibility. The Elder Law Journal [online], 20(2), 71-112. Available from: https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.2088159 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Fraser, N., and Honneth, A., 2003. Redistribution or Recognition? A Political-Philosophical Exchange. London: Verso.
Fredman, S., 2011. Discrimination Law. 2nd ed. Oxford University Press.
Fredman, S., 2012. Comparative study of anti-discrimination and equality laws of the US, Canada, South Africa and India [online]. Commissioned by the Directorate-General for Justice and Consumers (European Commission) and the European Network of Legal Experts in the Non-Discrimination Field. 14 November. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. Available from: https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/014f442a-abe3-4dfd-b688-43cda49c15db [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Freeman, J., 1994. Defining Family in Mossop v DSS: The Challenge of Anti-Essentialism and Interactive Discrimination for Human Rights Litigation. The University of Toronto Law Journal [online], 44(1), 41-96. Available from: https://doi.org/10.2307/825754 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Froc, K.A., 2011. Constitutional Coalescence: Substantive Equality as a Principle of Fundamental Justice. Ottawa Law Review [online], 42(3), 411-445. Available from: https://rdo-olr.org/en/2011/constitutional-coalescence-substantive-equality-as-a-principle-of-fundamental-justice/ [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Gilbert, D., 2003. Time to Regroup: Rethinking Section 15 of the Charter. McGill Law Journal, 48(4), 627-649.
Hameed, Y., and Simmonds, N., 2008. The Charter, Poverty Rights and the Space Between: Exploring Social Movements as a Forum for Advancing Social and Economic Rights in Canada. National Journal of Constitutional Law, 23(1), 181-213.
Herring, J., 2015. Vulnerable Adults and the Law [online]. Oxford University Press. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198737278.001.0001 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Hogg, P.W., 2005. What is Equality?: The Winding Course of Judicial Interpretation. The Supreme Court Law Review [online], 29(2d), 39-62. Available from: http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/sclr/vol29/iss1/4 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Iyer, N., 1993. Categorical Denials: Equality Rights and the Shaping of Social Identity. Queen’s Law Journal, 19(1), 179-207.
Jackman, M., 2010. Constitutional Castaways: Poverty and the McLachlin Court. In: S. McIntyre and S. Rodgers, eds. The Supreme Court of Canada and Social Justice: Commitment, Retrenchment or Retreat. Toronto: LexisNexis Canada.
Jackman, M., and Porter, B., eds., 2014. Advancing Social Rights in Canada. Toronto: Irwin Law.
Kosofsky Sedgwick, E., 1990. Epistemology of the Closet. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Law Commission of Canada, 2001. Beyond Conjugality: Recognizing and Supporting Close Adult Relationships [online]. Law Commission of Canada. Available from: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1720747 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Le Bourdais, C., and Lapierre-Adamcyk, E., 2008. Portrait des familles québécoises à l’horizon 2020: esquisse des grandes tendances démographiques. In: G. Pronovost, C. Dumont and I. Bitaudeau (with E. Coutu), eds., La famille à l’horizon 2020. Presses de l’Université du Québec.
Leckey, R., 2007. Family Law as Fundamental Private Law. The Canadian Bar Review [online], 86, 69-96. Available from: https://www.mcgill.ca/law/files/law/leckey_family_law_fundamental_private_law_2007.pdf [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Lessard, H., 2012. “Dollars Versus [Equality] Rights”: Money and the Limits on Distributive Justice. The Supreme Court Law Review [online], 58(2d), 299-332. Available from: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/sclr/vol58/iss1/11/ [Accessed 22 July 2019].
L'Heureux-Dubé, C., 2002. It Takes a Vision: The Constitutionalization of Equality in Canada. Yale Journal of Law & Feminism [online], 14(2), 363-375. Available from: https://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/yjlf/vol14/iss2/15/ [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Mackenzie, C., Rogers, W., and Dodds, S., eds., 2014. Vulnerability: New Essays in Ethics and Feminist Philosophy [online]. Oxford University Press. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199316649.001.0001 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
MacKinnon, C., 1987. Feminism Unmodified: Discourses on Life and Law [online]. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Available from: https://doi.org/10.2307/2070528 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Macklem, P., et al., 2016. Canadian Consitutional Law. 5th ed. Toronto: Emond.
Marella, M.R., 2001. Il diritto di famiglia tra status e contratto. In: F. Grillini and M.R. Marella, eds., Stare insieme: I regimi giuridici della convivenza tra status e contratto. Naples: Jovene.
McGill, J., and Gilbert, D., 2017. Of Promise and Peril: The Court and Equality Rights. The Supreme Court Law Review [online], 78(2d), 235-257. Available from: http://nawl.ca/pdf/ch10_gilbert_and_jena_edited_copy.pdf [Accessed 22 July 2019].
McGuire, A., 2015. The Case for Merging Finances in Marriage. Institute for Family Studies [online], 26 May. Blog post. Available from: https://ifstudies.org/blog/the-case-for-merging-finances-in-marriage [Accessed 20 May 2019].
McIntyre, S., and Rodgers, S., eds., 2006. Diminishing Returns: Inequality and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Toronto: LexisNexis Canada.
Ontario Law Reform Commission, 1993. Report on the Rights and Responsibilities of Cohabitants [online]. Toronto: Ontario Law Reform Commission. Available from: https://archive.org/details/esreportonrights00onta/page/n0 [Accessed 20 May 2019].
Palazzo, N., 2017. Identity politics e il suo reciproco: riflessioni giuridico-politiche sull’attivismo queer. In: A. Murgia and B. Poggio, eds., Prospettive interdisciplinari su formazione, università, lavoro, politiche e movimenti social [online]. Università degli Studi di Trento. Available from: https://www.unitn.it/archivio/events/sites/events.unitn.it/files/saperidigeneredue_1.pdf [Accessed 20 July 2019].
Palazzo, N., 2018. The Strange Pairing: Building Alliances to Recognize New Families. Michigan Journal of Gender and Law [online], 25(2), 161-237. Available from: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3231913 [Accessed 20 July 2019].
Payne, J.D., and Payne, M.A., 2015. Canadian Family Law. 6th ed. Toronto: Irwin Law.
Pothier, D., 1996. M’aider, Mayday: Section 15 of the Charter in Distress. National Journal of Constitutional Law, 6, 296-345.
Pothier, D., 2006. Equality as a Comparative Concept: Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall, What’s the Fairest of Them All? The Supreme Court Law Review [online], 33(2d), 135-150. Available from: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2135156 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Rosenbury, L.A., 2007. Friends with Benefits? Michigan Law Review [online], 106(2), 189-242. Available from: http://repository.law.umich.edu/mlr/vol106/iss2/1 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Ryder, B., 2013. The Strange Double Life of Canadian Equality Rights. The Supreme Court Law Review [online], 62(2d), 261-294. Available from: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/sclr/vol63/iss1/11/ [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Ryder, B., Cidalia, C., and Lawrence, E., 2004. What’s Law Good for? An Empirical Overview of Charter Equality Rights Decisions. The Supreme Court Law Review [online], 24(2d), 103. Available from: https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/sclr/vol24/iss1/5 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Sheppard, C., 2001. Grounds of Discrimination: Towards and Inclusive and Contextual Approach. The Canadian Bar Review [online], 80, 893-916. Available from: https://cbr.cba.org/index.php/cbr/article/download/3926/3919 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Sheppard, C., 2015. “Bread and Roses”: Economic Justice and Constitutional Rights. Oñati Socio-legal Series [online], 5(1), 225-245. Available from: http://opo.iisj.net/index.php/osls/article/view/439/561 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Stockdill, B.C., 2001. Forging a multidimensional oppositional consciousness: lessons from community-based AIDS activism. In: J. Mansbridge and A. Morris, eds., Oppositional Consciousness: The Subjective Toots of Social Protest. University of Chicago Press, 204-237.
Taylor, M.J., 1993. Queer Things from Old Closets: Libraries – Gay and Lesbian Studies – Queer Theory. Rare Books and Manuscripts Librarianship [online], 8(21). Available from: https://rbml.acrl.org/index.php/rbml/article/viewFile/93/93 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Watson Hamilton, J., 2018. The Supreme Court of Canada’s Approach to the Charter’s Equality Guarantee in its Pay Equity Decisions. ABlawg.ca [online], 12 July. Available from: https://ablawg.ca/2018/07/12/the-supreme-court-of-canadas-approach-to-the-charters-equality-guarantee-in-its-pay-equity-decisions/ [Accessed 20 May 2019].
Williams, C., 2016. Nova Scotia sisters who’ve lived together 38 years want survivor benefits. CBC [online], 28 October. Available from: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/nova-scotia-sisters-living-together-benefits-pension-access-1.3826095 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Wiseman, D., 2015. The Past and Future of Constitutional Law and Social Justice: Majestic or Substantive Equality? The Supreme Court Law Review [online], 71(2d), 563-605. Available from: http://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/sclr/vol71/iss1/22 [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), 1989. Intervenor factum in Andrews v Law Society of British Columbia, [1989] 1 SCR 143.
Young, I.M., 1990. Justice and the Politics of Difference. Princeton University Press.
Young, M., 2010. Unequal to the Task: ‘Kapp’ing the Substantial Potential of Section 15. The Supreme Court Law Review [online], 50(2d), 183-219. Available from: https://commons.allard.ubc.ca/fac_pubs/352/ [Accessed 22 July 2019].
Young, M., 2011. Why Rights Now? Law and Desperation. In: M. Young et al., eds. Poverty: Rights, Social Citizenship, and Legal Activism. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 317-336.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2020 Nausica Palazzo
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
OSLS strictly respects intellectual property rights and it is our policy that the author retains copyright, and articles are made available under a Creative Commons licence. The Creative Commons Non-Commercial Attribution No-Derivatives licence is our default licence, further details available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0 If this is not acceptable to you, please contact us.
The non-exclusive permission you grant to us includes the rights to disseminate the bibliographic details of the article, including the abstract supplied by you, and to authorise others, including bibliographic databases, indexing and contents alerting services, to copy and communicate these details.
For information on how to share and store your own article at each stage of production from submission to final publication, please read our Self-Archiving and Sharing policy.
The Copyright Notice showing the author and co-authors, and the Creative Commons license will be displayed on the article, and you must agree to this as part of the submission process. Please ensure that all co-authors are properly attributed and that they understand and accept these terms.
