View cases - Stewart McKelvey

Page: 76for the accommodation of the individual: see Central Alberta Dairy Pool v. Alberta (Human RightsCommission), [1990] 2 S.C.R. 489, [1990] S.C.J. No. 80.[292] Nor would there be any obligation on the government to provide sign-languageinterpretation for deaf patients dealing with health-care providers, if the majority of taxpayers didnot believe that such services should be paid out of the public purse: see Eldridge, above.[293] As the British Columbia Court of Appeal observed in Greater Vancouver, the problem with2011 FC 120 (CanLII)according too much deference to the demands of organized labour in examining a section 1justification for a breach of section 15 equality rights is that collective bargaining may “focus onmajority rule, rather than on the protection of minority rights”: at para. 83.[294] The Court went on in Greater Vancouver to note that not every provision of a collectiveagreement will necessarily protect minority rights. The Court observed that “little credence” wouldbe given to legislative or labour preferences “if the groups subjected to discriminatory treatmentwere women or ethnic minorities”. Why, then, the Court asks, “should the courts give credence tothese views where the group discriminated against is the elderly and where the sole basis ofdiscrimination is that they are elderly?”: at para. 83.[295] As Justice Cory observed in Dickason, a collective agreement can provide evidence of thereasonableness of a practice which appears on its face to be discriminatory. He went on to qualifythis statement, however, by noting that not only would it have to be shown that the agreement was