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When Silence Is no Longer Acquiescence: Gays and Lesbians under Canadian Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Andrée Lajoie ,
Éric Gélineau  and
Richard Janda
Andrée Lajoie
Affiliation:
Centre de recherche en droit public, University of Montréal
Éric Gélineau
Affiliation:
Centre de recherche en droit public, University of Montréal
Richard Janda
Affiliation:
Faculty of Law, McGill University
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Abstract

This paper shows the role of the courts in the advancement of gay and lesbian rights to be restricted to intervening when three conditions are present: after legislation has been felt by minority groups to be deficient; where stating principles rather than implementing them is involved, and when legislative modification is difficult to achieve because amendment of a rigid constitution is out of question, or in parts of the country where political conservatism has a similar effect. Decisions are grounded on equality, while other values put forward by gays and lesbians such as dignity, recognition, respect of identity and difference and social concerns will be endorsed only by dissenting judges, unless the majority is sure that their mention will have no practical consequence. However, this modest victory was not achieved at the cost of representing gays' and lesbians' interests or values as common with those of the dominant heterosexual majority. On the contrary it seems that the affirmation of the “right to difference,” centered on diversity, and the openness of this constructed identity might have led to a chain reaction starting with the evolution of public opinion as a consequence of lobbying and education by the gay/lesbian community, proceeding to create a new balance of power, more favourable to the gay/lesbian minority, and finally reaching more respect from courts and legislatures alike.

Résumé

L'article porte sur l'intégration des valeurs minoritaires dans le droit constitutionnel canadien, par la voie judiciaire aussi bien que législative. L'analyse des décisions de la Cour suprême relatives aux gais et lesbiennes permet de conclure que cette intégration dépend principalement de trois facteurs: l'introduction de recours suite au constat par cette minorité de l'inadéquation de la législation; la difficulté de modification législative dans le double contexte de rigidité constitutionnelle et de conservatisme de certaines législatures, et le respect de deux conditions: l'affirmation de ces valeurs minoritaires ne doit pas alourdir le fardeau financier de l'État ni mettre en péril les valeurs fétiches que la majorité dominante n'accepterait sous aucun prétexte de voir contrarier. Ces décisions sont fondées presqu'exclusivement sur l'égalité, alors que les autres valeurs prônées par les gais et lesbiennes comme la dignité, la reconnaissance, le respect de l'identité et de la différence ou les préoccupations sociales sont reléguées au discours des juges minoritaires dissidents, sauf quand la majorité est convaincue que leur mention n'aura aucun effet concret. Cependant, contrairement à notre hypothèse, ces modestes gains n'ont pas été obtenus au prix d'une représentation homogénisante des intérêts et des valeurs des gais et des lesbiennes, insistant sur leurs traits communs avec ceux de la majorité. Au contraire, il semble que l'affirmation d'un droit à la différence, axée sur la diversité et l'ouverture de cette identité construite, ait suscité une réaction en chaine où l'évolution de l'opinion publique conséquente au lobbying et à l'éducation populaire entrepris par la communauté gaie et lesbienne aurait entrainé à son tour un nouveau rapport de forces, plus favorable à cette minorité et, finalement, un plus grand respect de la part des tribunaux et des législatures.

Type
Articles
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 14 , Issue 01: Gender, Ethnicity, (Hetero)Sexuality, and Norms Genre, ethnicité, (hétéro)sexualité et normes , Spring/printemps 1999 , pp. 101 - 126
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 1999

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References

1. Criminal Law Amendment Act, S.C. 1968–69, C. 38.

2. Thus bringing to legislative fruition policies on which officials in the Justice Department had been working for a long time and borrowing the phrase from an editorial in the Globa and Mail, according to Clarkson, S..& McGall, C., Trudeau and Our Times, vol. 1 (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1990) at 107.Google Scholar

3. In 1967, when homosexuality was already decriminalized in Britain and would be in Canada within a year, the Court had felt bound—in Klippert v. The Queen, [1967] S.C.R. 823 [hereinafter Klippert]—to intepret s. 659 b) of the Canadian Criminal Code as meaning that a person convicted four times of homosexuality as prohibited under s. 149 would come within the definition of “dangerous sexual offender.”

4. Canada Act 1982 (U.K.), 1982, C. 11.

5. Sexual orientation was first introduced as an analogous ground for prohibited discrimination in s. 15 of the Charter and consequently in the Canadian Human Rights Act which must comply with it, by the Ontario Court of Appeal in Haig v. Canada, [1992] 9 O.R. (3rd) 495 [hereinafter Haig], a case involving discrimination in the Armed Forces. The federal authorities, thus recognizing the validity of that ruling, decided not to appeal it in the Supreme Court, which later confirmed its conclusions explicitly in Egan v. Canada, [1995] 2 S.C.R. 513 [hereinafter Egan].

6. The findings analysed in this paper are partial results of a research project bearing not only on gays and lesbians but on other minority (aboriginals) or marginalized (women) groups. It aims to understand the process of value selection in the context of judicial interpretation of open-ended legal wording and concepts.

7. See Appendix I for guidelines followed by the interviewer.

8. See Appendix II for the list and its justification.

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12. Ibid. at 195–98; Macdonald, Rod & Lajoie, Andrée, “The Integrity of Institutions: Role and Relationship in Constitutional Design—Whether Parliament and Courts,” Proceedings (Canada-Israël Law Conference of “Litigating the Values of a Nation”, Tel Aviv University, May 1998) [unpublished].Google Scholar

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14. The Charte des droits et libertés de la personne, L.R.Q. C. C-12, enacted in 1975 as L.Q. 1975, C. 6, was amended in 1977 (L.Q. 1977, C. 6, s. 1) to add sexual orientation to prohibited grounds of discrimination already listed limititatively in its section 10.

15. An Act to Amend Certain Ontario Statutes to Conform to Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, S.O. [1986] C. 64, amending, among others, S.O. [1981], C. 53.

16. Manitoba Human Rights Code, S.M. 1987/88, C. 45, amending the original Code enacted as S.M. 1970, C. 104.

17. Human Rights Act, S.Y. [1987], C. 3, amending the Fair Practices Act, R.S.Y.T., [1971], C. F-2.

18. An Act to Amend Chapter 214 of the Revised Statutes, 1989, The Human Rights Act, S.N.S. [1991], C. 12.

19. In Haig, supra note 5.

20. Supra note 4.

21. R.S.C. 1985, C. H-6, S.3.

22. Human Rights Amendment Act, S.B.C. [1992], C. 43, amending R.B.C. 1969, C. 10.

23. The Saskatchewan Human Rights Code Amendment Act, S.S. [1993] C. 61, amending S.S. [1979], C. S-24.1.

24. An Act to Amend the Human Rights Act, N.B.A. [1992], c. 30, amending S.N.B. [1973], C. H-11.

25. An Act to Amend the Human Rights Code, S.N. [1997], C. 18.

26. Egan, supra note 5. This latter decision which, as we have mentioned, confirms the inclusion of sexual orientation in the list of grounds for prohibited discrimination in the Canadian Charter and related human rights codes, nevertheless stops short of a finding of prohibited discrimination in the case at hand: spouse was defined as to exclude same-sexpartners, who were consequently denied benefits of old age pensions of their partner, a right enjoyed by heterosexual common law couples under Ontario law.

27. R.S.A. [1980], C. 1–2, first enacted as S.A. 1972, C. 2.

28. Vriend v. Alberta, C.S.C. 25285, April 2nd, 1998 [hereinafter Vriend], a case in which a teacher was reinstated in a position he had been dismissed from on grounds of homosexuality, a ruling which entailed reading sexual orientation into the list of prohibited grounds for discrimination in the Alberta individual's Rights Protection Act, after the Alberta Legislature had refused to write it in.

29. This technique, quite common in statutory interpretation, implies reading a disposition as if it expressly mentioned some words that are deemed to be implicit in it. By extension, in constitutional context, the technique has been used to write into the statute some words that the Constitution—as judicially interpreted—mandates should be found there because the legislature is presumed not to have intended to infringe the Constitution.

30. Canada v. Mossop (1993), 1 S.C.R. 554 [hereinafter Mossop], a case in which family was defined as excluding homosexual “families,” thus denying a gay employee the right to attend the funeral of his partner's father, a right enjoyed by members of traditional families.

31. Egan, supra note 5.

32. Haig, supra note 5; Vriend, supra note 28.

33. That is, by the Supreme Court of Canada. But some provinces' Courts of Appeal—namely Nova Scotia, Ontario and Québec—did render decisions that brought the Legislature to extend pension benefits to same-sex partners in the public sector: Nova Scotia v. Hodders, [1998] N.S.J. no. 125, C.A. no. 144161; Rosenberg v. Canada, [1998] O.J. no. 1627, C.A. April 23, 1998; Commission des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse v. Commission des affaires sociales, [1999] R.J.Q. 180.

34. M v. H., C.S.C. 25838, May 20th, 1999.

35. The Court expressly chose not to “read in” this definition with respect to section 29 of the Ontario Family Law, L.R.0.1990, c. F.3, alleging that such a remedy would not deal with the same discriminatory effect in section 53 of the same statute, governed by the same restictive meaning of “spouse” and directly related to section 29 but not questioned in M. v. H. and therefore not before the Court. Instead, it suspended the invalidity of section 29 until the Legislature modifies both sections, out of deference to the legislator who might not want to authorize common law spouses to opt out of alimony by consent if it entails opening this option to both hetero- and homosexual spouses, thus increasing the number of potential social security dependants.

36. Pension Statutes Amendment Act, (no 2), 1998, Bill 38, s. 1.

37. Bill 32, An Act to Amend Various Legislative Provisions Concerning De Facto Spouses 1st sess., 36th Leg. 1999 (introduced 6 May 1999), Québec, recognizing both heterosexual common law and same-sex couples would introduce relevant amendments to the Civil Code and 23 complementary statutes, including entitlement to public pensions. Announced in 1998 (The [Montreal] Gazette 19 June 1998, A-l & A-9) and tabled two weeks before the M. c. H. decision was rendered, it has a much wider scope than required by that decision.

38. Bill C-309, An Act Providing for Equal Treatment for Persons Cohabiting in a Relationship Similar to a Conjugal Relationship, 1st See., 36th Parl., 46–47 Elizabeth II, 1997–1998 (introduced by Réal Ménard, M.P. for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve).

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40. Bill C-78, 1st Sess., 36th Parl (adopted 26 May 1999).

41. Rosenberg, supra note 33.

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44. For the list of these groups and the description of their aims and organization, see Appendix II, infra.

45. Two pre-Charter cases, Klippert v. The Queen, supra note 3, and especially Gay Alliance Toward Equality v. Vancouver Sun [(1979) 2 S.C.R. 435] [hereinafter Gay Alliance]—in which freedom of the press not to publish a gay advertisement justified the discrimination involved in that refusal—were too important to omit. The others are post-Charter: Haig, supra note 5; Mossop, supra note 30; Egan, supra note 5; Vriend, supra note 28 and M. v. H., sura note 34.

46. Rodriguez v. A.G.B.C., [1993] 3 S.C.R.1161.

47. Schachter v. Canada, [1992] 2 S.C.R. 629.

48. R. v. Seaboyer, [1991] 2 S.C.R. 577.

49. Osborne v. Canada, [1991] 2 S.C.R. 69.

50. See supra note 37.

51. See Ménard, G., “La Communauté gaie: Accomplissement —ou raisonnement—du désir homosexuel” in Corton, A. & Tahon, M. B., eds., La Radicolité du quotidien, communauté et informatique (Montréal: V.L.B., 1987) 99Google Scholar; Piché, D., “Pour un militantisme dialogique. 1-La récupération du discours gai par la rectitude politique, 2- Demeurer soi-même”, Le Devoir (9–10 August 1995) A–7Google Scholar; Lepage, J.-P., “Militantisme gai” Le Devoir (31 August 1995) A–6.Google Scholar

52. A practice by which the previously secret homosexuality of a prominent gay or lesbian is publicly disclosed without her or his consent. See Mécary, C. & De La Predelle, G.., Les Droits des homosexuels (Paris: P.U.F., 1998) at 13.Google Scholar

53. Member of the (provincial) Legislative Assembly.

54. None in Gay Alliance; supra note 46; 11 on 42 in Mossop; supra note 30; 5 on 18 in Egan, supra note 5; and 4 on 24 in Vriend, supra note 28.

55. In Perelman & Foriere, supra note 10, the authors state that lower courts follow the opposite trend, which might explain an isolated decision where a lower court in Ontario has decided in favour of adoptions by gays and lesbians, when polls show the general population disapproves such openness. See Re K, [1995] 23 O.R. (3d) 679 (O.P.C.).

56. Thorne, S., “Liberals Face Stormy Return to Commons” The [Montreal] Gazette (23 May 1999) A–8.Google Scholar

57. Robitaille, A., “Les Conjoints de même sexe, entre la cour et les Parlements” Le Devoir (21–22 May 1999) A–12.Google Scholar

58. We were writing these comments on June 4. Four days later, a motion was tabled in the Commons by two Reform M.P.s to the effect “that, in the opinion of this House, it is necessary, in the light of the public debate around recent court decisions, to state that marriage is and should remain the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, and that Parliament will take all necessary steps within the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada to preserve this definition of marriage in Canada.” After the Justice Minister had included the words printed in italic as an amendment, it was adopted by a majority of 216 to 55. Canada, House of Commons, 36th Parl., 1st Sess., Journals no 240 (8 June 1999), vote no. 548.

59. We thank David Platts, a former clerk to Mr. Justice Corry of the Supreme Court of Canada, now a lawyer with McCarty/Tétrault, for his assistance in that regard.

60. The Association des femmes d'affaires et professionnelles gaies, which was then a new group in its recruiting phase.

61. “Rest of Canada,” a self-appointed description for the English-speaking provinces outside Québec in Canada.