Brooks v. Canada Safeway Ltd

The respondent’s group insurance plan provided weekly benefits for loss of pay due to accident or sickness. The plan covered pregnant women subject to an exclusion from coverage during the period commencing on the tenth week prior to the expected week of childbirth and extending to six weeks after it (even if the accident or sickness was unrelated to the pregnancy). The appellants, who all became pregnant in 1982, alleged that the differential treatment of pregnancy in the respondent’s plan constituted discrimination on the basis of sex contrary to s.6(1) of the Human Rights Act of Manitoba. The Supreme Court ruled that pregnancy discrimination is a form of sex discrimination and that the respondent had discriminated against the appellants on the basis of sex. It said that bearing children benefits society as a whole and women should not be economically or socially disadvantaged due to childbearing.