Abstract
This judgment of the Women's Court of Canada re-considers the reasons in the 2008 Supreme Court of Canada decision in R v Kapp, though it concurs in the result. The judgment takes particular issue with the Supreme Court's interpretation of section 15(2) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as an independent “saving” provision capable of exempting ameliorative laws and programs from scrutiny under section 15(1), identifying three reasons that this approach cannot stand: (1) the existing interpretation of section 15(2), which treats it as an interpretive provision informing the whole of section 15, is sufficient to protect ameliorative laws and programs from formal equality challenges like the one advanced in this case; (2) the novel approach to section 15(2) established in this case may be inconsistent with substantive equality in cases of under-inclusiveness and discriminatory effects; and (3) the Court's reading of section 15(2) in this case improperly displaces section 1 of the Charter in cases involving allegedly ameliorative laws or programs. The judgment concludes that the interpretive approach to section 15(2), which views this section as informing the overall section 15 promise of substantive equality, ought to be maintained. Finally, the judgment offers a brief critique of the Supreme Court's obiter comments on section 15(1) of the Charter, calling into question the narrow approach to discrimination suggested by the two-part test adopted in Kapp.
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