TORONTO, March 6, 2008 -- Today marks the launch of a bold initiative in pursuit of equality rights: the Women’s Court of Canada (WCC).

The Women’s Court of Canada is a group of academics, activists, and litigators who have undertaken to rewrite Supreme Court of Canada equality judgments in order to challenge conventional thinking about equality. They have started with six significant cases that deal with child care, equal pay, pension rights, social assistance, participation in constitutional negotiations, and integration of children with disabilities in public schools.

The Women’s Court of Canada is celebrating the publication of its judgments in the current issue of the Canadian Journal of Women and the Law during International Women’s Week at a “Rewriting Equality” reception and symposium at York University’s Osgoode Hall Law School and the Faculty of Law, University of Toronto.

The symposium brings law students, community activists, and lawyers from across the country to discuss the WCC decisions, examine current challenges, and continue the process of “rewriting equality”.

The WCC takes as its motto Oscar Wilde’s injunction: “The only duty we owe to history is to rewrite it.”

The WCC initiative is part of a long and admirable tradition of Canadian women refusing to accept a decision of the Supreme Court as “the last word”. The most famous of these is the 1929 Persons Case in which five Albertan women appealed to the Privy Council in England, which ultimately recognized Canadian women as “persons”, capable of holding public office.

Many equality watchers have been disappointed by court decisions in Charter cases that failed to recognize and address the disadvantages women experience and therefore failed to deliver the equality promised by section 15.

The goal of the WCC in rewriting equality is to encourage debate about important issues and to inspire others committed to equality to engage in similar exercises, exploring the limits and opportunities of our laws. The WCC aims to show how equality rights can be used to deliver genuine, substantive equality, rather than further entrench existing social and economic inequities.

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For further information, please contact:

Denise Réaume

Professor of Law, University of Toronto

416 885-6955

 

Janet Mosher

Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School of York University

416-736-5457