Ackermann J
[43]Similar views, with which I agree, were expressed in Vriend v Alberta,[1] where Cory J[2] expressed himself thus:[3]
“It is easy to say that everyone who is just like ‘us’ is entitled to equality. Everyone finds it more difficult to say that those who are ‘different’ from us in some way should have the same equality rights that we enjoy. Yet so soon as we say any … group is less deserving and unworthy of equal protection and benefit of the law all minorities and all of … society are demeaned. It is so deceptively simple and so devastatingly injurious to say that those who are handicapped or of a different race, or religion, or colour or sexual orientation are less worthy.”
- ↑ (1998) 156 DLR (4th) 385 per Cory and Iacobucci JJ (Lamer CJC, Gonthier, McLachlin and Bastarache JJ concurring; L’Heureux-Dubé and Major JJ concurring in part and dissenting in part).
- ↑ In this part of the judgment writing for the Court.
- ↑ At paragraphs 69 and also 102 respectively, in passages cited in the Sodomy case, above n 34, at paras 22 and 23 respectively. See also Egan above n 44 at 144–5. Although the Court was divided in Egan on the disposition of the case, no disagreement was expressed with the views expressed in this passage from the joint dissenting judgment of Cory and Iacobucci JJ.
43
