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Vriend v. Alberta

  • An important Supreme Court of Canada case that determined that a legislative omission can be the subject of a Charter violation.

  • Delwin Vriend was dismissed from his position as a lab coordinator at King's College, a private religious college in Edmonton, Alberta, because of his sexual orientation in 1991

  • Vriend attempted to file a discrimination complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, but was refused on the grounds that sexual orientation was not protected under the province's human rights code, therefore he sued the Government of Alberta and its Human Rights Commission

Section 15(1)

15. (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, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

Section 1

1. The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the rights and freedoms set out in it subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.

  • Vriend sought a declaration from the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench that his dismissal of King’s College breached section 15 of the Charter.

  • Justice Russell of the Court of Queen's Bench found in favor of Vriend as the college violated s. 15 of the Charter; however, the College’s argument was that s. 15 did not specifically state sexual orientation and s. 1 allowed them (the college) to dismiss Vriend based on their religious views not based on discrimination.

  • Therefore, the Alberta Court of Appeal, in a decision written by Justice McClung, overturned the trial decision; the trial was then passed on to the Supreme Court of Canada.

1. Basic Facts

2. Sections of the Charter that are involved

By Jenn Main & JD Lloyd

3. Decisions at the courts

  • In 1994, an Alberta court ruled that sexual orientation must be treated as a protected class under human rights legislation.

  • The provincial government subsequently appealed and in 1996 the decision was overruled by the Alberta Court of Appeal.

  • This decision was then appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of Vriend v. Alberta, who finally ruled in 1998 that provincial governments could not exclude protection of individuals from human rights legislation on the basis of sexual orientation

5. Opinion

4. Decision of the Supreme Court of Canada

In 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada finally ruled that provincial governments could not exclude lesbian and gay individuals from human rights legislation and that the exclusion of protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation was an unjust violation of s. 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

  • the human rights board of Alberta should of accepted his complaint because he should not have had to go through the long process of all the trials

  • the decision by the Supreme Court of Canada was the right decision because Vriend deserved the chance to prove that even though sexual orientation wasn't covered under section 15 he still shouldn't of been dismissed from his job based on it

  • sexual orientation should be stated in section 15 of the charter as well as in the Alberta Human Rights Code
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