Introducing the Women's Court of Canada

Abstract

8:00 PM, 27 February 2004—the end of a long day. Ten feminist equality/ Charter activists, lawyers, and academics are sitting around a long table eating pasta and drinking red wine in an Italian restaurant in downtown Toronto. We have spent the day together talking about section 15 of the Charter—recent cases, recent losses. We have been pushing ourselves and our thinking, strengthening and developing our equality analysis, trying to respond to the challenges of intersectionality and of ‘‘competing rights.’’ We have been strategizing about how to move forward with our ideas. Over the course of the day, we have had moments of exhilaration, moments of intense debate and discussion, and some break-through eureka moments. It has been an exciting, productive day full of possibilities. Yet despite all of these positives, the day has been overshadowed by an overriding sense of gloom brought on by what we all see as grievous judicial backsliding on equality. At the end of the day, we are pretty subdued. We are feeling disheartened, angry, frustrated. Women’s equality is painfully far from being a reality—too many women live in poverty, unable to feed and house themselves and their children adequately; lesbians are merely tolerated, mostly regarded as a deviant lifestyle, sometimes targeted for hate and violence; women with disabilities are still denied basic access to transportation, employment, and autonomy; racialized women are stigmatized and marginalized, and, in the post 9/11 political climate, some are perceived as potential terrorists; Aboriginal women are disappearing—raped, murdered, and discarded. The issues are urgent; there is much equality work to be done. But, politicians and Supreme Court of Canada judges alike seem to think that women have largely attained equality and that other issues (balanced budgets and national security) should take priority over equality. We are losing equality ground; we are in danger of losing our equality footing. Equality has experienced some terrible setbacks in recent Supreme Court of Canada decisions. The impact has been devastating, not only for the