How have the courts interpreted equality rights under s. 15(1) of the Charter?
British Columbia, Canada
The following excerpt is from International Forest Products Ltd. v. Sandhu, 2008 BCCA 204 (CanLII):
Neither the tribunal member nor the reviewing judge referred to Law Society of British Columbia v. Andrews, 1989 CanLII 2 (SCC), [1989] 1 S.C.R. 143. In that case, the court held that a statutory provision requiring Canadian citizenship for admission to the practice of law in this province infringed the complainant’s equality rights under s. 15(1) of the Charter without justification under s. 1. The court discussed the interaction between equality and discrimination. At p. 164, McIntyre J. stated: “It must be recognized … that every difference in treatment between individuals under the law will not necessarily result in inequality and, as well, that identical treatment may frequently produce inequality”.
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