The Women’s Court of Canada launches this week. (See the story in the Ottawa Citizen [1].) The WCC is a group of women academics and practitioners who combined to rewrite six Supreme Court of Canada decisions to take a full and proper account of women’s equality. The affected decisions are:
- Symes v. Canada [2], [1993] 4 S.C.R. 695
deduction — child care expenses — women — taxpayer — income - Native Women’s Association of Canada v. Canada [3], [1994] 3 S.C.R. 627 ((The citation is misprinted in the Majury article referred to below.))
funding — freedom of expression — women — equal — constitutional - Eaton v. Brant County Board of Education [4], [1997] 1 S.C.R. 241
placement — disabled — special — child — pupil - Law v. Canada (Minister of Employment and Immigration) [5], [1999] 1 S.C.R. 497
discrimination — differential treatment — claimant — survivor’s pension — dignity - Gosselin v. Quebec (Attorney-General) [6], [2002] 4 S.C.R. 429
programs — welfare recipients — security of the person — dignity — legislation - Newfoundland (Treasury Board) v. Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Public and Private Employees [7], [2004] 3 S.C.R. 381
pay equity — government — crisis — hospital workers — women
The corrected decisions are published in the current edition of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law [8]. An explanatory article from that issue, “Introducing the Women’s Court of Canada [9]” by Diana Majury is available online in PDF.
There are plans in the works to make all the judgments available free online.