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LEAF launches a new website to monitor equality rights

Equality Rights Central (ERC) will monitor all equality, human rights and discrimination issues, primarily in lower courts and tribunals

Toronto (29 Sept. 2010) – The Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) has launched its Equality Rights Central ("ERC") website, the first-of-its-kind online resource in Canada, to monitor developments in equality law, building on LEAF's 25 years of expertise in advancing equality rights law and policy in Canada.

"It has been very exciting to see this project come together, and this is just the beginning, as equality rights advocates use it and contribute to it," says the project's coordinator, Tamar Witelson, LEAF staff lawyer.

The ERC will monitor all equality, human rights and discrimination issues, primarily in lower courts and tribunals. It will feature recently launched cases, equality-related news and analysis, legislative reform with an equality impact and a nationwide events calendar. "Resources like examples of written factums from equality cases have gotten very enthusiastic feedback so far," says Witelson.

LEAF Legal Director, Joanna Birenbaum says, "The ERC will help equality advocates to network and share information and resources to develop test cases."

"There is already discussion on the site about the meaning of consent in sexual assault cases when a person is unconscious; whether the federal government has to make its websites more accessible to people with visual impairments; and the equality implications of challenges to the Criminal Code provisions against polygamy and prostitution-related activity," says Birenbaum.

The ERC has been in development for three years, with funding from the law foundations of British Columbia, Manitoba, Ontario and New Brunswick, as well as the LEAF Foundation.

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The National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) is one of Canada's largest labour organizations with over 340,000 members. Our mission is to improve the lives of working families and to build a stronger Canada by ensuring our common wealth is used for the common good. NUPGE

More information:

Equality Rights Central website