The applicant, Valerie Jacob, challenged the $5,000 income eligibility criteria for the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB), and Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit (CRSB), asserting it violated her section 15(1) Charter right due to her physical disability.
The court applied the two-step test from R. v. Sharma, finding that the applicant failed to demonstrate a disproportionate impact based on disability (first step) and that the criteria did not reinforce, perpetuate, or exacerbate disadvantage (second step).
The court concluded the $5,000 threshold was not arbitrary, being based on a minimum workforce attachment benchmark, and applied equally to disabled and non-disabled individuals who did not meet it.
The application was dismissed without costs.
