Substantive Equality, the Supreme Court of Canada, and the Limits to Redistribution

This article seeks to discover why constitutionally guaranteed equality rights have had a limited redistributive impact in Canada. It begins by reviewing different conceptions of equality, identifying the conception that is dominant within the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence, and illustrating how this conception is not conducive to redistribution. It then shifts to Newfoundland v NAPE, a 2004 decision of the Supreme Court of Canada in which a …