Twenty-Five Years of Disability Equality? Interpreting Disability Rights in the Supreme Court of Canada

This paper explores the issue of disability equality in the Canadian context. It probes the ways in which the equality promises contained within the Charter of Rights and Freedoms have been interpreted by the Supreme Court of Canada in addressing disability issues. Drawing on legal cases brought by both disabled and non-disabled citizens the paper examines the extent to which the court has recognized disability as a social construction. Relying on socio-legal analyses incorporating the perspectives of disability rights activists and their allies the paper finds that the evolution of a substantive approach to equality for disabled persons has been (and continues to be) one of fits and starts.