Equality in Canada: A tale of non-normative groups struggling with grounds of discrimination

Abstract

This article intends to address the limits associated with a rigid grounds-based approach to equality, requiring claimants to categorize their identity as 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, and particularly the cases offering an analysis of 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”. Este artículo se propone abordar los límites relacionados con un enfoque de la igualdad rígido y basado en motivos de discriminación (grounds), exigiendo que los demandantes categoricen su identidad como un motivo enumerado para “merecer” la tutela de la garantía de igualdad. En primer lugar, arrojo luz sobre la irreconciliabilidad de los motivos rígidos con concepciones posestructuralistas de la identidad, y después propongo un enfoque de la igualdad extensivo a grupos fluidos e interseccionales. Analizo la jurisprudencia canadiense sobre igualdad, sobre todo los casos que ofrecen un análisis de motivos. En ese punto, esbozo dos propuestas para superar los riesgos asociados a la jurisprudencia actual sobre igualdad, centrándome en la discriminación por estado civil. Por último, ofrezco un somero repaso de la compleja interacción entre los abordajes de la igualdad y la organización de los grupos de interés, e ilustro los problemas que acechan a la organización de “grupos posidentitarios”.

Xenophobic Discrimination

“…The harm-based inquiry offers a corrective to the ground-based approach to discrimination which is seen as having left 'undisturbed the broadest systemic inequalities … and intact the material, cultural and social inequalities'. 120 By keeping the nature of harm at the heart of discrimination -in the case of xenophobic discrimination, of disbelongingness -treaty bodies can be reoriented towards the effect or impact of a particular act, omission, policy, or practice, rather than the formal criteria or grounds it may be based on because the latter hardly reveal what is salient about discrimination.…”

Negotiating Canada’s Labour Market: The Case of Nigerian Women in Ontario

“…Several scholars ascribe to the positioning of equality in antidiscrimination discussions (Palazzo 2020;Fredman 2011). Formal equality demands that "likes should be treated alike" (Palazzo 2020, 95).…”

“…There Redistribution, however, is pivotal to remedying economic inequalities (Palazzo 2020;Fraser and Honneth 2003). Fraser and Honneth agree that:…”