Founded in 1986 by political activist Les McAfee, Egale Canada was incorporated as a federal not-for-profit organization in 1995, with a focus on education, advocacy, litigation and expert consultation.

However, this work is hindered when laws and policies prevent school staff from upholding gender-diverse students' rights to equality, safety, privacy, and self-determination.

Some notable cases that Egale has been involved in include: CCLA v. New Brunswick, UR Pride v. Government of Saskatchewan et al., York Region District School Board v. Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario, and A.B.

Although the challenge was unsuccessful, it did set a unanimous precedent by which sexual orientation was henceforth entered into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a grounds for protection from discrimination.

The second challenge was successful, and revised the opposite-sex definition of "spouse" in Ontario's Family Law Act (M. v. H.) so that the right to common-law marriage extended to same-sex couples.

They also helped convince Statistics Canada to include same-sex families in the nationwide census, and worked with LEGIT to advance equal immigration rights for gays and lesbians.

Egale has also supported freedom of speech for people with anti-gay points of view, including Albertan pastor Stephen Boissoin, who was found guilty by the Alberta Human Rights Commission of exposing gays to hatred.

Notable funders include:[18][19][20][21][22] Egale blamed the Conservative government for allegedly failing to help gay immigrants from countries that have anti-gay laws, such as Iran, Iraq, Malaysia, Jordan, Mexico and Nicaragua.

[24] In 2005, the organization was criticized by some of Canada's gay press for failing to submit a brief, after indicating an intention to do so, to the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights regarding the potential impact on LGBT communities of Bill C-2, a controversial piece of legislation that revised the age of sexual consent.

[25] In 2009, Egale Canada presented Jaime Watt, a political strategist in the government of former Premier of Ontario Mike Harris, with its inaugural Leadership Award in honour of his role in supporting the provincial law that granted common-law marriage rights to same-sex couples.