Sex Discrimination

The Supreme Court of Canada rules that a refusal of membership in a men's organization is not a discriminatory denial of services contrary to the Yukon Human Rights Act.

The complainant Madeleine Gould had been refused membership in the Yukon Order of Pioneers because of her sex. She filed a complaint under the Act, which was heard by a Board of Adjudication. The Yukon Status of Women Council intervened in support of Gould's position. The Board of Adjudication ruled in favour of Gould based upon an Agreed Statement of Facts. The Board heard no testimony.

It was not disputed before the Board of Adjudication that the Order's action in rejecting Gould's application amounted to discrimination on the basis of sex contrary to s. 6(f) of the Act. The Board found that in preserving and collecting the literature and incidents of Yukon's history, the Order was "offering or providing services...to the public" and concluded that the discrimination...

The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, rules that Safeway's employee disability plan discriminated against pregnant employees and that this constitutes discrimination because of sex within the meaning of s. 6(1) of the 1974 Manitoba Human Rights Act.

This is an appeal from a decision of the Manitoba Court of Appeal which found that the Safeway disability plan did not discriminate against pregnant employees and that discrimination because of pregnancy is not discrimination because of sex.

The Safeway disability plan, which was challenged in the complaints of Susan Brooks, Patricia Allen and Patricia Dixon, provided twenty-six weeks of disability benefits to any worker who had worked for Safeway for three months and who had to be absent from work for health reasons. However, the plan denied benefits to pregnant employees during a seventeen-week period commencing ten weeks before the week of childbirth and extending to six weeks after it. During this...