Three retired female members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police commenced a constitutional application challenging pension provisions that prevented job-sharing members from purchasing full-time pension credits for their service, a benefit available to members on unpaid leave.
The majority of the Court held that the pension plan's treatment of job-sharers created a distinction based on the enumerated ground of sex, as the program was disproportionately composed of women with childcare responsibilities.
The Court found that this arrangement perpetuated a long-standing source of economic disadvantage to women — gender biases embedded in pension plans historically designed for full-time male employees — thereby establishing a prima facie breach of s. 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The Attorney General failed to demonstrate a pressing and substantial objective capable of justifying the limitation under s. 1 of the Charter.
The Court granted a declaration that the inability of full-time RCMP members who temporarily reduced working hours under a job-sharing agreement to purchase full-time pension credit for that service violated their s. 15(1) equality rights.
The appeal was allowed with costs throughout, with three justices dissenting on the application of the equality framework and the sufficiency of causal nexus.
