Equality is not just an exotic add-on to our human rights; Women's right to equality under the law, to substantive and procedural equality, is part of who we are as Canadians
Vancouver Sun
February 29, 2008
Editorial By: Maureen McTeer, author and lawyer. 

…. Years ago, in the mid-1970s, I was an idealistic and energetic young law student. Today, a few bumps, bruises and wrinkles later, I still dream of a world of fairness and equality for women and do what I can to achieve that dream….

Friends of mine who dared have a baby before the magic seven-year period of practising had passed were often put on the "Mommy track" and spent three or more extra years making partner.

When I was interviewing for articles, I was asked if I was married and if so if I planned to have children. The photo of four little kids under the age of 10 on the interviewer's desk had led me to believe he would support families. It turned out that he could only be a senior partner with a family because (as he put it), his wife "didn't work"!

Last year, the chief justice spoke of the barriers still facing women in our profession and reminded us yet again that even today in the 21st century, there are "maternal walls" to keep us all inside the box -- even when we thought we had cracked the glass ceiling.

Even today, our sex and the responsibilities that it brings is neither recognized nor respected in this modern country.

Rather than laws that enhance our dual roles of parent and professional, female lawyers with babies and young children remain the ones in a marriage or partnership who must most often make the difficult decisions about balancing and managing work and family.

How many of our law firms have parental leave policies?

… I commend the Canadian Bar Association for the work it has done in this field through its model parental leave policy. But its authority cannot require the provincial law societies to act. Creating such parental leave policies in each law firm and business is an essential part of what your group can achieve for us all.

While we are at it, let us not forget child care.

Thirty-one years ago, when I was at law school, I joined other women across Canada to fight for a national child care program.

In the dying days of the Martin federal government, that goal became a reality. In the earliest days of the current Conservative government, that program was scrapped.

Have you ever tried to find a child care provider for $100 a month?

It is an embarrassment that a country like Canada, whose Parliament so proudly (and unanimously) entrenched a Charter of Rights and Freedoms into its new Constitution more than a quarter of a century ago, now has a government intent on eroding -- even dismantling -- the very processes and policies that give meaning and effect to the equality rights enshrined in the Charter.

Equality is not an exotic add-on to our human rights; nor are women just another "special interest" group to be ignored and degraded.

Our equality is guaranteed under the Charter and we must make it clear as lawyers that our grand-mothers, our mothers, indeed we did not fight for decades for justice and fairness to have it denied by any government -- no matter where it might be positioned on the ideological and political scale.

Our equality is not just a legal right, not just a passing trend.

Women's right to equality before and under the law, our right to substantive as well as procedural equality, is part of who we are as Canadians.

It defines the Canadian identity as much as the four seasons.

Equality for women in Canada is about principle, not politics; about human rights not religious choices.

It is time that we as women and as lawyers stand together again, as we did in the late 1970s to protect and promote the values of justice and fairness that are at the heart of s. 15 and s. 28 of our Charter….

Our profession must reform itself or face a loss of the best and the brightest of our graduates and seasoned lawyers.

But our responsibility to ourselves and to each other extends beyond this room, indeed far beyond our chosen profession.