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Examining Canadian Discrimination within a Society in Charter of Rights and Freedoms

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Every individual in society is guaranteed a certain amount of protection and equality from the state regardless of their situation or background. Depending on how the terms discrimination and equality are interpreted in the courts will those rights apply.
In the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, section 15 consists of two subsections which will be examined in terms of discrimination within society. As stated in section 15 (1) “Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection of the law without discrimination......”.1 The term discrimination here refers to all the forms of discrimination such as race, ethnicity, or any forms of disabilities. However, discrimination can also be applied in a general …show more content…

There are ways for the courts to prevent things such as trivial matters in courts through proper interpretation. There are two ways courts can interpret matters, there is the textual and contextual approach. In this situation, the approach would be more contextual as it would focus on the use of reason to interpret the law beyond what is in the statute and more based on societal factors.8 Societal factors refer to a person’s economic, financial, educational, or a person’s background. Some people in society have a low standing in all these factors, which would put them at a disadvantage and most laws reflect those needs.
All these factors contribute to how the Andrews case and other issues could be used to support the inclusion of the terms social condition and social class within section 15 of the Charter. There are other elements that can support this such as the type of equality that is involved and how it relates to human dignity
This case is significant in terms of this paper since the courts discussed some key principles concerning section 15. One of those principles claims that “Section 15 is not, however, a general guarantee of equality: differential treatment does not necessarily result in inequality…”.3 In most circumstances, this can be considered true as the Charter cannot provide protection for every single issue, otherwise people would go to

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