suggested that, in taking this sort of positive action, the government should not be the source of further inequality; Thibaudeau, at para. 38 (per L'Heureux-Dubé J.). 74 The same principle has been applied by this Court in its interpretation of the equality provisions of provincial human rights legislation. In Brooks v. Canada Safeway Ltd., [1989] 1 S.C.R. 1219, the Court found that an employer's accident and sickness insurance plan, which disentitled pregnant women from receiving benefits for any reason during a certain period, discriminated on the basis of pregnancy and hence sex. In so holding, it resoundingly rejected the reasoning of Bliss v. Attorney General of Canada, [1979] 1 S.C.R. 183, at p. 190, which had held that the inequality resulting from a similar benefit program was "not created by legislation but by nature". 75 In support of the view that the state has no obligation to remedy pre-existing disadvantage in providing benefits to the general population, the respondent relies on this Court's decision in Symes v. Canada, [1993] 4 S.C.R. 695. There, the appellant, a self-employed mother, argued that the wages paid to her nanny were business expenses and that the section of the Income Tax Act, R.S.C. 1952, c. 148, that did not allow her to deduct the full cost of these expenses discriminated against her on the basis of sex. The Court rejected this argument, holding that the distinction created between persons who incur child care expenses and those who do not is not related to sex, despite the fact that women are responsible for a disproportionate share of the social costs of child care. Writing for the majority, Iacobucci J. held that the appellant had not proven that the actual expenses of child care were borne disproportionately by women. He thus concluded that the appellant had not demonstrated an adverse effect that was created or contributed to by the legislation. He stated the following, at pp. 764-65: If the adverse effects analysis is to be coherent, it must not assume that a statutory provision has an effect which is not proved. We must take care to distinguish between effects which are wholly caused, or are contributed to, by an impugned provision, and those social circumstances which exist independently of such a provision. 76 While this statement can be interpreted as supporting the notion that, in providing a benefit, the state is not required to eliminate any pre-existing "social" disadvantage, it should be remembered that it was made in the context of determining whether the legislation made a distinction based on an enumerated or analogous ground. In Symes, the appellant was unable to show that the allegedly adverse effect created by the legislation was suffered by members of such a group. There was no relationship, in other words, between the benefit provided by the government and the social disadvantage suffered by women in child-rearing. In the present case, in contrast, the alleged adverse effect is suffered by an enumerated group. The social disadvantage borne by the deaf is directly related to their inability to benefit equally from the service provided by the government. As a result, I do not believe that Symes is helpful to the respondent. 77 This Court has consistently held, then, that discrimination can arise both from the adverse effects of rules of general application as well as from express distinctions flowing from the distribution of benefits. Given this state of affairs, I can think of no principled reason why it should