Harvey M. Groberman and Lisa J. Mrozinski, for the respondents. Judith Bowers, Q.C., and Simon Fothergill, for the intervener the Attorney General of Canada. Janet E. Minor and Richard J. K. Stewart, for the intervener the Attorney General for Ontario. Deborah L. Carlson, for the intervener the Attorney General of Manitoba. B. Gale Welsh, Q.C., for the intervener the Attorney General of Newfoundland. Jennifer Scott, Katherine Hardie and Judy Parrack, for the interveners the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund and the Disabled Women's Network Canada. Martha Jackman and Arne Peltz, for the intervener the Charter Committee on Poverty Issues. David Baker and Patricia Bregman, for the interveners the Canadian Association of the Deaf, the Canadian Hearing Society and the Council of Canadians with Disabilities. The judgment of the Court was delivered by //La Forest J.// 1 LA FOREST J. -- This appeal raises the question whether a provincial government's failure to provide funding for sign language interpreters for deaf persons when they receive medical services violates s. 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The appellants assert that, because of the communication barrier that exists between deaf persons and health care providers, they receive a lesser quality of medical services than hearing persons. The failure to pay for interpreters, they contend, infringes their right to equal benefit of the law without discrimination based on physical disability. Factual Background 2 Medical care in British Columbia is delivered through two primary mechanisms. Hospital services are funded by the government through the Hospital Insurance Act, R.S.B.C. 1979, c. 180 (now R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 204), which reimburses hospitals for the medically required services they provide to the public. Funding for medically required services delivered by doctors and other health care practitioners is provided by the province's Medical Services Plan, which is established and regulated by the Medical and Health Care Services Act, S.B.C. 1992, c. 76 (now known as the Medicare Protection Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 286). Neither of these programs pays for sign language interpretation for the deaf. 3 Until 1990, the Western Institute for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, a private, non-profit agency, provided free medical interpreting services for deaf persons in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia. This program was funded entirely from private sources without any contribution