Week #5 lecture

Question 1

What is LeaF

Answer 1

Women’s legal action and education fund

• Founded by feminist lawyers
• interveners

Question 2

what does leaf ensure?

Answer 2

S1,15, and 28 of the charter

Question 3

what is the view of the law of leaf

Answer 3

• The law is resistant to change – usually this is a good thing.
• The stabilising nature of law is problematic when the law is not keeping up with changing societal values
• Law is often one of powerful interests – reinforcing of dominant opinions
• Laws come from judiciary and legislature. Still comprised mostly of elite white men.
• Although they may occasionally consider the interests of others, it is unlikely that they
  would have a thorough understanding of groups other than themselves
• Legal writings and legal proceedings have put a large number of constraints on what can be said in Court and the Legal Sphere

Question 4

who makes up LEAFF

Answer 4

• LEAF are a group of women in the legal profession who are a group of educators,
  interveners or support in terms of Supreme Court cases and sexism in general

Question 5

When did leaf start and by who?

Answer 5

• During the 1980s, LEAF drew upon the work of Katherine McKinnon, dominance feminism
  o Reduces all subordination to gender, ignoring all other forms of oppression – lack of
  intersectionality
• Adopted a cixousian approach to try and move away from dominance approach

Question 6

what is an intervener

Answer 6

• interested third party in the Supreme Court case. - Not related to any particular group but they feel that they can provide relevant information that they would like the
  court to consider in their decision

Question 7

who is helene cixous

Answer 7

A feminist writer – novelist and essayist

Question 8

what does cixous do in her work

Answer 8

• cultural Feminist: thinking about others and difference – not treating people as copies as
  ourselves, but treating people as radically unique
   Tailor words to the individual, tailor them in a way that makes sense to their unique
  experiences
   Postmodern: words mean more than they appear to mean, necessary to exploit conceptual
  weaknesses
   Use the meanings of words to break down the law and achieve socially progressive goals

Question 9

what happened in mossop v. canada

Answer 9

• The agreement said that he was entitled to bereavement leave, however his partner and
  father-in-law were not considered to be his family
  -Alleged discrimination based upon family status

Question 10

what did other institutions say about mossop

Answer 10

The Human Rights Tribunal – agreed with Mossop
- The Federal Court of Appeal – also agreed that discrimination occurred, however that it was
based on sexuality not family status, and discrimination on sexuality is not a protected
grounds
- Lost in supreme ccourt, however clair l’heureax dube dissented – explained that
family has ever changing meaning, and equality law should capture the diversity of human
experience

Question 11

what is the problem in mossop

Answer 11

atertight categories – you can only be discriminated against on one ground at a time.
Does not allow for any intersectionality
- meaning of term family

Question 12

what are aspects of leaf seen in mossop case

Answer 12

Pushing the words – especially the word family, multiple meanings
o Multiple forms of oppression, the experience of that oppression
o The gap between the law as it is written and how it happens in reality. Life is not
experienced in categories

Question 13

what hapened in vriend v. alberta

Answer 13

1998

• asked
  He was asked if he was gay, he said yes.
   One year later, the college adopted a policy against staff living a homosexual lifestyle. He
  was asked to resign, he refused. He was later fired.

Question 14

what did the law say about vriend v. alberta

Answer 14

• By the time this case reached the Supreme Court, Egan v. Canada had created a precedence
  – suggesting that S15 did protect on grounds of sexual orientation

Question 15

what were vriend’s actions

Answer 15

Lodged a complaint with Alberta HR Commission
 Told he could not lodge a complaint because Alberta HR Act (IRPA) did not protect him for
sexual orientation. He could also not use the charter to support his claim because the school
was a private school, not a government entity
 He applied for declaratory relief – the government legislation violates the vibe of the
Charter. Sexual orientation was an analogous ground to all other forms of discrimination
and should be written in to S15

Question 16

what is the role of the charter in vriend v. alberta

Answer 16

The Charter was created to tell the government what they couldn’t do, to stop them from
doing anything that would be unconstitutional. It does not however, compel them to do
anything, nor can it be used to fight against things that the government has not done
 The Supreme Court did not look at whether or not the legislation did or did not cover it;
they looked at the social ramifications of leaving gay/lesbians citizens out of the Charter. It
left them unprotected from discrimination

Question 17

what were the results of vriend

Answer 17

Concurrent dissent – interpret s15 not a categoris but about social vulnerabiliy – that
each of those characteristics subject the people to social vulnerability, and therefore, group
membership of homosexuality should be included.
-Fought for protection against anyone
who can prove that they are socially vulnerable
 LEAF put forward an argument – intervened

Question 18

what did leaf say about vriend

Answer 18

• Criticised in the past for not being even in their representation of cases – they often
  intervened in sex discrimination, but no other forms of discrimination
  o The final ruling would also effect women long term, so they wanted to make sure a
  wome􀅶’s a􀅶gle 􀇁as also heard
  o Reminded the SCC to take a substantive equality approach
  o Wanted to highlight the reality of lesbian life, lesbian experience
  o Criticised for maintaining level of abstraction, did not try to apply it to real life

Question 19

what does bill c23 say

Answer 19

Modernisation of Benefits and Obligations Act (2000)
- Bill C23 was trying to trying to justify the definition of spouse to include same sex partners
 EGALE was apart of the committee that was contributing to the government’s research on
what people thought about the proposed legal change (Bill C23)

Question 20

what is egale

Answer 20

equality for gays and les everywhere

Question 21

what is nawl

Answer 21

National Association of Women and the Law. Argued that Bill C23 had negative
effects on substantive rights of lesbians. Said that lesbian couples are not the same as
heterosexual couples because they experienced sexist inequalities twice (eg. lower earning
potentials, fewer financial resources etc) recognising them as common law spouses’,there would be issues with taxation, social support etc.
- NAWL called for opt-out of Bill C23 until substantive equality section was revised

Question 22

differences between nawl and leaf

Answer 22

LEAF – focusing on the definition of couple, marriage, spouse etc.
 NAWL took an intersectional approach, focusing on effects due to being two women, and
lesbian orientation. How the effects will be different for lesbian couples compared to a gay
relationship. Uniqueness, individual circumstances

Question 23

what is the civil marriage act

Answer 23

2005
The Department of Justice went out to find out what the thoughts on current marriage laws
were, meet challenges head on rather than following what the courts were doing
1. Keep the opposite-sex definition of marriage
2. Expand the definition of marriage to include same sex couples
3. Abolish marriage as a legal category, and only have common law partnerships and a
registration system