Photo: Flickr/ Evgenia Rigaut
Whenever I teach undergrad students about gender discrimination, they are often quite shocked to discover that as recently as the 1970s, there was a Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) ruling that found that discrimination on the basis of pregnancy was not a form of gender discrimination (See: Bliss v Canada (Attorney General), [1979] 1 SCR 183 (Bliss)). However, the SCC reversed itself in Brooks v Canada Safeway, [1989] 1 SCR 1219 (Brooks). Afterward, protection from discrimination on the basis of pregnancy was clearly provided in human rights law across Canada. Although an entire generation has grown with the understanding that women cannot be discriminated against on the basis of pregnancy (e.g., in employment, rental accommodation or services customarily available to the public), there are indications of incidents involving pregnancy discrimination in today’s Canada.
Read More