Protecting Women’s Rights in Canada with Section 15 of the Charter
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): The Good Men Project
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2018/07/05
In the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, we find and the fundamental rights given to all Canadians.
Within this framework of a provision for rights, we can discover the means by which to protect the rights of women and men. In this particular instance, we can find the protection of the rights of women with the development of a thorough understanding of the Charter.
Through the Government of Canada, we can see the development of an important foundation for equality and justice for all.
Happiness becomes another issue. For the equality of women with men, there needs to be a consideration of the particular statements in sections of the Charter.
The one for some minor exploration and discussion today will be Section 15 of the Charter with an examination of its scope and limits and implications.
Section 15 of the Charter states:
Equality Rights
Marginal note: Equality before and under law and equal protection and benefit of law
- (1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
Marginal note: Affirmative action programs
- (2) Subsection (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
As can be seen in the description, the formal important of equality before the law as one truncation and then the equality under the law as the next one. The importance of the equal protection as a fundamental right both under and before the law.
In a manner of speaking, it states: all interpretations provide equal protection for every person.
Every person as women here too, of course, but this is new as women did not have the right to vote in a democracy until the early 1900s in Canada.
This for the basis for the legal persona non grata of women in Canada. If a woman cannot vote in a democracy, then the woman does not amount to a legal person in a democratic state.
The import of the provision of equality for women and men or every person becomes integral to Section 15 of the Charter. Furthermore, the protection within the law comes with extras or benefits within the law.
That is, regardless of one’s sex, a woman retains the right – and a man – right for equality before and under the law without discrimination on the basis of their being a man or a woman.
As to subsection (2) of Section 15, we find the statements about the specifications of the equality within the equal protection before and under the law.
The activities, laws, and programs designed for the reduction in the disadvantage of those with less in society remain protected and, indeed, extensions of the concerns and issues with Section 15(1).
Now, the three points of contact within the functions of the society would include the activities, laws, and programs.
Regarding activities, these, as can probably be inferred, incorporate any and all activities devoted for the reduction in inequality in the society. How can these take place? Under what circumstances?
Who can be the arbiter of the level of reduction in inequality? And so on. All valid questions with less generalizable answers and more specified within the context answers for the individuals to develop for themselves.
For the programs of decreased inequality, there have been some programs devoted to the IAT or the Implicit Association Test in order to detect some implicit biases rather than explicit ones. It amounts to the comparison of implicit is to explicit as prejudicial attitudes are to segregated schools and urinals.
It becomes psychological rather than legal-behavioural-educational (in one example).
I did have dinner with Anthony Greenwald who spearheaded the intellectual and psychological science around the IAT as a young psychology student, first-year psychology student invitation from Dr. Daniel Bernstein. Interesting experience.
The efficacy of the IAT comes under fire at the moment with some programs implemented to reduce the discrimination against those less seen or represented in the society.
In particular, the use in anti-discrimination work. The efficacy does not extend to individuals seen as discriminatory themselves. It amounts to a reaction time difference in positive and negative valence words relative to race, gender, class, age, and other categorizations of individuals.
The Left speaks of this as indicative of racial or other bias.
The Right talks of this as faux science or a pseudoscience akin phrenology where bumps and ridges on the head indicated personality traits and intelligence levels – interesting epistemology of the soul but wrong and too coarse. Not exactly positron emission tomography scans.
Left and Right stand tall, bold, courageous, and adamant in their positions… and wrong. The IAT measures the speed of cognitive processing or mental associations, not bias by necessity.
The speed from loose empirical findings into direct activism seems too hasty for the best of intentions; people want to reduce discrimination. Does this reduce the level of discrimination against individual persons in Canada?
Others work within legitimate frameworks for the decrease in discrimination based on identification while bearing in mind the need for a slower processing of it.
With the third category or the laws, the legal precedents set for the reduction in the discrimination against women. These give the basis for equality. It can enter into a variety of domains with some focus on the Charter itself through Section 15 and Section 28.
It can enter other domains in relation to international law, conventions, declarations, and other relevant documentation enforceable on Canadian society within a higher-order ethical justice system.
Section 15 of the Charter segments in a neat manner. It sets the grounds for the equality of all persons but also, and in this relevant sub-interpretation today, the equal treatment of women before and under the law.
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In-Sight Publishing by Scott Douglas Jacobsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Based on a work at www.in-sightpublishing.com.
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