Posted on 12/19/2002 11:42:20 AM PST by Clive
The needy and indigent were losers when the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Thursday that a Charter of Rights guarantee to equal treatment does not encompass a distinct right to social-welfare benefits.
The court ruled 5-4 against a claim by an young, indigent Quebec woman. The appellant — Louise Gosselin — had argued that her low monthly welfare rate of $170 discriminated against her based on her youth.
The judges also ruled 7-2 on the separate question of whether Charter right to life, liberty and security of the person includes a right to basic welfare benefits.
The ruling was enormously significant for the needy and their advocates, who viewed it as an opportunity to force governments to provide a basic level of subsistence for their most needy citizens.
Lawyers for Ms. Gosselin argued that it would be absurd to interpret the Charter guarantee of "life, liberty and security of the person" as excluding those who are missing the most basic necessities of life.
They also argued that if no such right were to exist, it would put Canada in violation of international human-rights law.
Ms. Gosselin found herself relegated to a particularly low rate of assistance that targets employable people under the age of 30. The $170 a month that she received was the lowest of any rate in Canada.
Obliged to survive in any way she could, Ms. Gosselin was often homeless, malnourished, underdressed and reliant on soup kitchens and charity-run programs for most of her food.
She contended that the provision violated her right to life, liberty and security of the person as well as her equality rights. She also invoked a section in Quebec's Charter of Rights that guarantees the right to adequate financial assistance.
The governments of Quebec, B.C., Alberta and Ontario argued against there being any such right to provide for those in need. A number of social advocacy groups made legal arguments in support of Ms. Gosselin.
Ms. Gosselin lost at trial and again at the Quebec Court of Appeal, making Thursday's decision her third and final defeat.
Three of the four judges who supported Ms. Gosselin's equality-rights argument have their roots in her home province — Madam Justice Claire L'Heureux-Dubé, Mr. Justice Louis LeBel and Madam Justice Louise Arbour. Mr. Justice Michel Bastarache was the fourth dissenting judge.
The vote was not as close on the question of whether the restriction on Ms. Gosselin violated the Charter's Section 7 right to life, liberty and security of the person. Only Judge L'Heureux-Dubé and Judge Arbour felt that it did.
Majority takes cautious approach
In a portion of the ruling eagerly awaited by constitutional lawyers, the majority adopted a notably cautious and incremental approach to the all-important right to life, liberty and security of the person.
They said the section has so far been interpreted largely in the context of threats to the legal rights of citizens. Courts must adopt caution in extending S.7 rights outside the criminal context, they said — particularly if it means using the section to force governments to take pro-active remedial action.
"Thus far, the jurisprudence does not suggest that S. 7 places positive obligations on the state," Madam Justice Beverley McLachlin wrote for the majority.
"Rather, S.7 has been interpreted as restricting the state's ability to deprive people of their right to life, liberty and security of the person. Such a deprivation does not exist here, and the circumstances of this case do not warrant a novel application of S.7 as the basis for a positive state obligation to guarantee adequate living standards."
In regard to the equality challenge, the court said that Ms. Gosselin failed to establish that the welfare regimen treated he as being "less worthy" than older welfare recipients simply because it had built-in incentives to prod young recipients back into the workplace.
"The government's long-term purpose was to provide young welfare recipients with precisely the kind of remedial education and skills training they lacked and needed in order to integrate into the workforce and become self-sufficient," Chief Justice McLachlin wrote.
Far from being discriminatory in a negative way, the welfare regimen actually showed great sensivity and concern toward the interests of young people who were thrown onto the welfare rolls during the early years of a serious recession, the majority said.
"The regime constituted an affirmation of young people's potential rather than a denial of their dignity," they said.
Dissenting judges
Judge Arbour's dissenting reasons amounted to a plea for the court to give a broad reading to the right to life, liberty and security of the person, lest it choke off the promose of the Charter itself.
She said the right is a vital one that was never intended to apply only to negative extremes of criminal law such as capital punishment.
"Constitutional rights are not simply a shield against state interference," Judge Arbour said. "They place a positive obligation on the state to arbitrate competing demands arising from the liberty and rights of others."
She said judge cannot shirk from interpreting the Charter simply because it could force governments to spend money.
"In certain cases, S.7 can impose on the state a duty to act where it has not done so," she said. "The Charter compels the state to act positively to ensure the protection of a significant number of rights.
"Economic rights that are fundamental to human life or survival are not of the same ilk as corporate-commercial economic rights," she said. "The right to a minimum level of social assistance is intimately intertwined with considerations related to one's basic health and, at the limit, even one's survival."
Judge L'Heureux-Dubé insisted in her own set of dissenting reasons that Ms. Gosselin's psychological and physical integrity were severely breached by the arbitrary division between welfare recipients under and over 30.
"Harm to dignity results from infringements of individual interests including physical and psychological integrity," she said. "Such infringements undermine self-respect and self- worth and communicate to the individual that he or she is not a full member of Canadian society."
Meanwhile, Judge Bastarache noted that while 85,000 single people under the age of 30 were on social assistance at the time, the Quebec government had reserved only 30,000 places in retraining and education programs.
This suggested that the province was expecting a large number of people would not respond to the program in hopes of increasing their monthly payments — a fact that raised inferences that the province's primary interest was in saving money.
"The differential treatment had severe deleterious effects on the equality and self-worth of the appellant and those in her group which outweighed the salutary effects of the scheme in achieving the stated government objective," Judge Bastarache said.
Judge LeBel took an even more hard-line approach in opposition to the welfare scheme.
"Young social assistance recipients in the 1980s certainly did not latch onto social assistance out of laziness," he wrote. "They were stuck receiving welfare because there were no jobs available.
"Even if the government could validly encourage young people to work, the approach adopted discriminated between social aid recipients under 30 years of age and those 30 years of age and over for no valid reason."
The litigation actually took the form of a class action in which Ms. Gosselin represented all welfare recipients under the age of 30 who were subject to the lower payment rate between the years of 1985-1989. The plaintiffs estimated that the entire group affected by the payments were owed compensation of $389-million, plus interest.
See also:
Supreme Court of Canada -- Common law does not equal married
Isn't it amazing what happens when the Golden Goose is on its death bed?
At this point, I could be knocked over by a blow with a feather...
UNUSUAL?!?!?
Frankly, I'm stunned; who would have believed?!?
I'm surprised the court didn't cite Heinlein vs Lazy Bums in their decision. Looks like they arrived at the same conclusion independently. Go figure.
TANSTAAFL
Wow! Maybe we could get our Supreme Court to rule the same.
They have.
What Social Security Trust Fund
"The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Fleming v. Nestor (1960), 363 US 603; that there is no Constitutional right to Social Security benefits. Social Security benefits can legally be cut or eliminated et any time, and beneficiaries have no recourse. The Court held that, "To engraft upon the Social Security System a concept of 'accrued property rights' would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustments to ever changing conditions which it demands."
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