Litigating Equality

Litigating Equality is a valuable resource for legal practitioners and scholars interested in current issues relating to equality rights litigation in Canada. A follow-up to a previous volume, Public Interest Litigation in Canada, this book builds on its themes and takes a deeper dive into equality rights advocacy.

Over the past decade, a number of decisions of the Supreme Court of Canada have revised the way that section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is applied to legislation and government action, leaving the jurisprudence shifting and uncertain.

Litigating Equality delves into many of the resulting difficulties and offers strategies for litigators as well as carving out issues for future academic research. Contributors include leading scholars of equality and members of prominent advocacy groups for equality rights in Canada whose litigation efforts have helped to shape the concepts of substantive equality and discrimination.

The text offers, in three parts, a thorough analysis of the law including the doctrinal and practical challenges of equality rights litigation. The three parts are:

• Part I: Making Sense Out of the Confusion
• Part II The Practical Implications
• Part III: Equality Beyond Section 15

The Collection of Papers

1. Cheryl Milne and Sophia Moreau, General Editors – Introduction: Litigating Equality
2. Jennifer Koshan and Jonnette Watson Hamilton – “Clarifications” or “Wholesale Revisions”? The Last Five Years of Equality Jurisprudence at the Supreme Court of Canada
3. Margot Young – Zombie Concepts: Contagion in Canadian Equality Law
4. Colleen Sheppard – Litigating Structural Inequality: Micro, Meso and Macro Dynamics
5. Anthony Sangiuliano – Finding Fault under Section 15 of the Charter: Miller J.A.’s Court of Appeal Dissent in Sharma
6. Benjamin Perryman – Proving Discrimination: Evidentiary Barriers and Section 15(1) of the Charter
7. Adriel Weaver and Jessica Orkin – Demonstrating Discrimination: Judicial Notice, Legislative and Social Framework Facts and the Politics of Intervention
8. Raji Mangat – Interveners, Public Interest Litigation and Social Context: Advancing Equality Rights on Uneven Terrain
9. Cheryl Milne and Caitlin Salvino – Analyzing the Treatment of Multiple Charter Claims: Judicial Restraint and the Case for Section 15
10. Jonathan Thompson – Prosecutorial Discretion and the Equality Guarantee After Fraser v. Canada
11. Marion Sandilands, Thomas Conway, Abdalla Barqawi, Joseph Rucci and Sarah Nixon – Litigating Equality in Ottawa’s Taxi Industry: Metro Taxi v. City of Ottawa
12. Dr. Kerri A. Froc – Are You Serious? Litigating Section 28 to Defeat the Notwithstanding Clause
13. Kat Owens and Pam Hrick – Advancing Equality Outside the Four Corners of Section 15
14. Amitpal C. Singh – Litigating Intentional Discrimination

Litigating Equality is a collection of papers developed out of the Supreme Court Law Review, Second Series.