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Authors Cited Canada. Minister of Human Resources Development. Improving Social Security in Canada. Persons with Disabilities: A Supplementary Paper. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada, 1994. Canada. Statistics Canada. Housing, Family and Social Statistics Division. Target Groups Project. A Portrait of Persons with Disabilities. Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 1995. Canadian Bar Association. Task Force on Health Care. What's Law Got to Do with It? Health Care Reform in Canada. Ottawa: The Association, 1994. Chilton, Elizabeth Ellen. "Ensuring Effective Communication: The Duty of Health Care Providers to Supply Sign Language Interpreters for Deaf Patients" (1996), 47 Hastings L.J. 871. Elliot, Robin. "Scope of the Charter's Application" (1993), 15 Advocates' Q. 204. Goundry, Sandra A., and Yvonne Peters. Litigating for Disability Equality Rights: The Promises and the Pitfalls. Prepared for the Canadian Disability Rights Council, Winnipeg. Winnipeg: Canadian Disability Rights Council, 1994. Hogg, Peter W. Constitutional Law of Canada, vol. 1, 3rd ed. (Supplemented). Scarborough, Ont.: Carswell, 1992 (loose-leaf). Lepofsky, M. David. "A Report Card on the Charter's Guarantee of Equality to Persons with Disabilities after 10 Years -- What Progress? What Prospects?" (1997), 7 N.J.C.L. 263. McLachlin, Beverley. "The Evolution of Equality" (1996), 54 Advocate 559. McLellan, A. Anne, and Bruce P. Elman. "To Whom Does the Charter Apply? Some Recent Cases on Section 32" (1986), 24 Alta. L. Rev. 361. Pothier, Dianne. "M'Aider, Mayday: Section 15 of the Charter in Distress" (1996), 6 N.J.C.L. 295. Ross, June M. "Applying the Charter to Discretionary Authority" (1991), 29 Alta. L. Rev. 382. Sacks, Oliver. Seeing Voices: A Journey Into the World of the Deaf. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989. APPEAL from a judgment of the British Columbia Court of Appeal (1995), 7 B.C.L.R. (3d) 156, 59 B.C.A.C. 254, 98 W.A.C. 254, 125 D.L.R. (4th) 323, [1995] B.C.J. No. 1168 (QL), dismissing an appeal from a judgment of Tysoe J. (1992), 75 B.C.L.R. (2d) 68, [1992] B.C.J. No. 2229 (QL). Appeal allowed. Lindsay M. Lyster and Andrea L. Zwack, for the appellants.

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Eldridge v. British Columbia (Attorney General)

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Country

Canada

Rights Involved

Right to health

Issue

Non-discrimination
Resource allocation

National Court

Supreme Court of Canada

Date: Oct 9, 1997

Summary: In 1990, the non-profit agency that had provided sign language interpreter services in British Columbia began experiencing serious financial difficulties and sought funding through officials at the Ministry of Health, but was turned down. The Supreme Court found the failure to provide such services to be a violation of the Charter, and stated that the right to equality places obligations on governmental actors to allocate resources to ensure that disadvantaged groups have full advantage of public benefits. In this case, the government had failed to demonstrate that it had a reasonable basis for denying medical interpretation services in light of costs; the government failed to meet the minimum impairment requirement necessary to justify such discriminatory treatment resulting from the failure to provide services, as the estimated cost of providing sign language interpretation for the whole of British Columbia constituted just 0.0025% of the provincial health care budget at the time.

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EldridgeDecision.pdf
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Eldridge v. British Columbia (Attorney General)

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