Equality and Non-discrimination

In 1994 the Agriculture Labour Relations Act (ALRA) was passed to include agricultural workers in the Province of Ontario's labour relations regime.  One year later a newly elected Conservative government repealed the ALRA.  The Appellants challenged both the repeal of the ALRA and the exclusion of agricultural workers from the Labour Relations Act (LRA) as an infringement of the rights of agricultural workers to associate under section 2(d) of the Canadian Charter.  They also alleged discrimination against a vulnerable class of workers, in violation of the right to equali

 The case concerned a resolution adopted by the Dobšiná municipal council, under pressure from right‑wing anti‑Roma groups, to cancel a previous resolution in which the council had approved a plan to construct low‑cost social housing for Roma inhabitants living in very poor conditions. The petitioners contended, amongst other things, that the State party had failed to safeguard their right to adequate housing, thereby violating Article 5(e)(iii) of the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD).  

The applicants were permanent residents in South Africa. They challenged legislative provisions, which limited entitlement to social grants for the aged to South African citizens, and would prevent children of non-South African citizens in the same position as the applicants from claiming any of the childcare grants available to South African children (regardless of the citizenship-status of the children themselves).  

Mrs Zwaan de Wries became unemployed in February 1979 and was granted unemployment benefits until October 1979. But she was denied continued support under the Unemployment Benefits Act (WWV) because she was a married woman and was not the family ‘breadwinner'. Married men could obtain the benefits without the need to prove they were a ‘breadwinner'.