Modern Law podcast: The Charter’s strange history with gender equality rights
On the show, UNB associate law professor Kerri A. Froc discusses gender equality rights, the notwithstanding clause and why the Supreme Court’s composition matters.
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For the past 41 years, Section 28 of the Charter has required that the rights and freedoms guaranteed in it be implemented without discrimination between the sexes. But counterintuitively, as our latest guest Kerri Froc reminds us, s. 28 has rarely been used in practice to secure women’s equality. Indeed, successful challenges before the courts involving women as claimants have mostly been argued based on s. 15, which sets out the right to equal protection and equal benefit of the law for all without discrimination.
But s. 28 has been argued in the challenge against Bill 21, Quebec’s secularism law, which prohibits Quebec citizens who work in public service from wearing religious symbols and which some argue affords unequal treatment to women -- Muslim women in particular.
That's the jumping-off point of our wide-ranging Charter discussion today with Froc, who is an Associate Professor at UNB Law. We also discuss the notwithstanding clause, medical assistance in dying, and the increasing use of social science evidence in our courts.
Froc is also a Trudeau and Vanier Scholar. She has taught courses at Carleton University, Queen’s University, and the University of Ottawa on feminist legal theory and various aspects of public law.
Before completing her doctorate, she worked for 18 years as a lawyer, including as a civil litigator in Regina, a staff lawyer for the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF), and as a lawyer in law reform at the Canadian Bar Association.
She is also the co-editor, with Howie Kisclowicz and Richard Moon, of an upcoming collection of writings called “The Surprising Constitution,” being published by UBC Press.
It's definitely worth your time, so please listen on your preferred streaming service (Apple, Google, Spotify) or in the embedded audio below:
COPY EPISODE SUMMARY Yves Faguy speaks with UNB associate law professor Kerri A. Froc about gender equality rights, the notwithstanding clause and why the Supreme Court’s composition matters. EPISODE NOTES Yves Faguy speaks with UNB associate law professor Kerri A. Froc about gender equality rights, the notwithstanding clause and why the Supreme Court’s composition matters.
