Research in Support of Litigating Social Condition, Poverty and Homelessness as Grounds of Discrimination
Cases and Evidence Provided by CURA Researchers
Advocacy Centre For Tenants Ontario v. City of Kitchener and the Regional Municipality of Waterloo (Municipal Bylaws)
For full description of case, click here
- Decision (Ontario Municipal Board, 2010)
- Bruce Porter’s Witness Statement
- Media coverage: May 16, 2009, May 21, 2009, January 16, 2010
Boulter v Nova Scotia Power Incorporation (Utilities)
For full description of case, click here
- Supreme Court of Canada Application for Leave to Appeal
- Bruce Porter’s Response to Information Requests from Attorney General: Outlines how discriminatory attitudes and prejudices against low-income people may be reflected in a policy of refusing to accommodate the unique circumstances of poor households.
- Evidence of Bruce Porter on behalf of the Affordable Energy Coalition and Denise Boulter, et al.
- Factum of Denise Boulter (Nova Scotia Court of Appeal)
- Decision (2009 NSCA 17)
P.D. v. British Columbia (Legal Aid / Access to Justice)
- Decision (2010 BCSC 290)
R v. Clarke (Jury Selection)
For full description of case, click here
- Decision in R v Clarke regarding jury challenge for cause(Ontario Superior Court, 2003)
- Bruce Porter’s Affidavit
Toussaint v. Minister of Citizenship (Immigration)
For full description of case, click here (See also: SRAC page)
Federal Court of Canada:
- Memorandum of Argument: Application to Intervene – Charter Committee on Poverty Issues (CCPI)
- Decision on Intervention Application
- Memorandum of Fact and Law of the Intervener CCPI
- Expert Evidence
- Decision (2009 FC 873)
Federal Court of Appeal:
- Memorandum of Argument: Application to Intervene – CCPI
- Department of Justice opposition to CCPI’s MOA
- CCPI’s response to DOJ
- Decision to grant intervener status
- Memorandum of Argument of the Intervener CCPI
- Decision (2011 FCA 146)
Supreme Court of Canada
- Application for Leave to Appeal filed by Nell Toussaint
- CCPI Application in support of Leave to Appeal
Further Resources
Canadian Human Rights Act Review – Calls for addition of “Social Condition” to the CHRA
For full description of the 2000 Review Panel’s Report, click here
- Promoting Equality: A New Vision - Full Report (2000)
- Excerpt on Consideration of Social Condition as a Prohibited Ground of Discrimination (2000)
- Lucie Lamarche, Social Condition as a Prohibited Ground of Discrimination in Human Rights Legislation: Review of the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms (1999)
- Wayne McKay & Natasha Kim, Adding Social Condition to the Canadian Human Rights Act (2009)
International Council on Human Rights Policy (ICHRP)
The ICHRP is facilitating Penalising Poverty: A Platform-Network for collaborative research and advocacy to generate knowledge and policy advocacy to strengthen human rights-based responses to laws and practices that penalise people in poverty and propose policy alternatives. CURA community researcher, Bruce Porter, presented “Getting the Right(s) Framework: Rights to Housing, to Livelihood and Discrimination Against the Poor” at an expert workshop held by the ICHRP on the Penalisation of People Living in Poverty in Geneva on 17-18 March 2011.
Social Rights, Discrimination and the Right to Equal Citizenship
Bruce Porter, provides an overview of “Social Rights, Discrimination and the Right to Equal Citizenship” in his chapter "Claiming Adjudicative Space: Social Rights, Equality and Citizenship" in Margot Young et al, eds, Poverty: Rights, Social Citizenship, and Legal Activism (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2007) 77. Highlighted below are some of the key documents he references:
- Ekos Research Associates, Memorandum Concerning Child Poverty Focus Groups: Revised Conclusions (February 4, 1997). Secured through a Freedom of Information Request, this memorandum analyzes the results of focus groups on poverty. It concludes that “welfare recipients are seen in unremittingly negative terms by the economically secure”.
- People on Welfare for Equal Rights v. Constable Michael Spurr (1991) (Nova Scotia Police Review Board). Decision regarding a complaint filed by People on Welfare for Equal Rights against Constable Michael Spurr after he suggested that people on welfare are genetically inferior and should stop having children.
Historical Resources
See Resouces on Poverty and Homelessness or Social Condition as Grounds of Discrimination