Charter Litigation

Vriend v. Alberta

Delwin Vriend was employed as a laboratory coordinator in an Alberta college. He had received positive performance evaluations, salary increases and promotions. However, he was fired when the employer found out he was gay.

Vriend attempted to file a human rights complaint, but the Alberta Human Rights Commission advised him that he could not file a complaint because sexual orientation was not included as a protected ground under the Individual's Rights Protection Act. Vriend brought a court application seeking a declaration that the Act violated his equality rights under the Charter. The trial judge allowed the application, holding that the omission of sexual orientation as a protected ground from the Act violated section 15 of the Charter. However a majority of the Alberta Court of Appeal allowed the province's appeal in a decision in which one of the judges referred to the claim for equal human rights protection as an effort to seek "the validation of homosexual relations, including sodomy, as a protected and fundamental right...rebutting a millennia of moral teaching" and then shockingly went on to liken the protection of sexual orientation in human rights legislation with the "violently aberrant sexual configurations" of mass murderers Jeffrey Dahmer, Paul Bernardo and Clifford Olsen. Vriend appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada.

On April 2, 1998, the Supreme Court of Canada allowed the appeal. The Court held that the exclusion of sexual orientation as a ground of discrimination in the Act created a distinction which resulted in the denial of equal benefit and protection of the law on the basis of sexual orientation. It imposed a disadvantage on gays and lesbians and withheld a benefit that was available to others. It also sent a message to Albertans that it was permissible, and perhaps even acceptable, to discriminate against gays and lesbians on the basis of sexual orientation. This discrimination could not be saved under section 1 of the Act. Alberta did not even allege that it had a pressing and substantial objective and, in any event, the exclusion was, on its face, the very antithesis of the principles embodied in the legislation as a whole. Finally, the Court held that reading sexual orientation into the provincial legislation was the appropriate remedy in the circumstances.

Egale Canada Inc., which intervened in support of Vriend, was represented by Cynthia Petersen.

The Canadian Labour Congress, which intervened in support of Vriend, was represented by Steven Barrett and Vanessa Payne.

The Canadian Jewish Congress also intervened in support of Vriend. The CJC was represented by Lyle Kanee.

Click here to read the Supreme Court's decision