CCLA is committed to this broad vision of equality, recognizing as it does that for human rights and fundamental freedoms to have meaning, they must be equally accessible to every person. After all, how can a society claim to be just if some people’s lives and freedoms are not equally valued? If certain groups do not have the same access to society’s resources and services? If some people are blocked when they try to protest or otherwise use their freedom of expression?
And yet, despite the Charter guarantee of the right to equality, it is often people who are marginalized because they are Indigenous or Black who face racial profiling and overly harsh treatment by police and the criminal system; women and LGBTQ2S+ individuals who have more difficulty accessing appropriate healthcare to meet their basic needs; youth and people without resources who have more difficulty getting their message heard and understood when they are trying to stand up for their own rights; and a disproportionate number of people facing intersecting forms of discrimination on the basis of race, disability and poverty who may experience homelessness.
CCLA’s Equality Program is dedicated to supporting, standing with, and fighting for the rights of individuals and groups who face discrimination, and in particular those who are most marginalized, many of whom experience intersecting forms of discrimination, whose right to full equality has not been realized.
