Section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

[1] Section 15 itself dates back to the earliest draft of the Charter, published in October 1980, but it was worded differently.

(2) This section does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged persons or groups.

[2]During the drafting, the guarantee to "everyone" was dropped in favour of "every individual," with the intent that corporations could not invoke equality rights.

The reason for this was so that provincial and federal governments would have enough time to review their legislation and make the appropriate changes to any discriminatory laws.

In Quebec (Attorney General) v. A (2013) a majority of the Court found that perpetuating prejudice or stereotyping did not form an additional requirement in the second part of the test.

The majority itself split on the correct way to apply the second part of the test, leaving the present state of the law on Section 15 unclear until 2015.

The current framework for analyzing an alleged violation of s 15(1) of the Charter is that set out in Kahkewistahaw First Nation v. Taypotat (2015) at paras 19–20.

As section 15's words "in particular" hint that the explicitly named grounds do not exhaust the scope of section 15, additional grounds can be considered if it can be shown that the group or individual's equality rights were denied in comparison with another group that shares all of the same characteristics except for the personal characteristic at issue.

In Corbiere v. Canada [1999] McLachlin described this factor to be the most compelling and suggestive of discrimination if proven.

However, the absence of a pre-existing disadvantage does not necessarily preclude a claimant from succeeding as seen in Trociuk v. British Columbia [2003].

The more severe and localized the results of the law for those affected the more likely to show that the distinctions in treatment responsible are discriminatory.

[8] In September 2006, the Conservative federal government announced that it would be "trimming the fat and refocusing spending on the priorities of Canadians."

[9] In 2016, the newly elected Liberal government announced they would be providing $5 million annually to restore the Court Challenges Program.