Overview

West Coast LEAF’s mandate is to achieve equality by changing historic patterns of systemic discrimination against women through BC based equality rights litigation, law reform and public legal education. 

This means that we do things like make submissions to government (law reform), and teach workshops about women’s and girls’ rights in the workplace and in relationships (public legal education). It also means that we get involved in equality cases in the courts (equality rights litigation). 

It is not surprising that many people assume that equality rights litigation means we represent individual women as their lawyer in making a human rights or equality complaint. But in fact we don’t. What we do is intervene as a third party in cases that might have an impact on women’s equality in BC. Intervention is a legal term that means we do not directly represent the interests of the plaintiff or the defendant. Instead, we act as a kind of “friend of the court” and make arguments on how the particular law or action in question impacts women’s equality in systemic and substantive ways.  

For example, the Rick v. Brandsema case is a BC family law case in which, after 27 years of marriage, the parties signed a separation agreement that left Mr. Brandsema with substantially more money and property than Ms. Rick.  Ms. Rick suffered mental health challenges throughout the relationship as well as when the agreement was signed. In addition, Ms. Rick identified herself as a survivor of domestic violence. The Supreme Court of Canada found that the parties’ separation agreement was unfair and invalid because Mr. Brandsema exploited Ms. Rick’s vulnerabilities and purposely misled her about the state of their financial affairs. Both parties had their own counsel and presented their arguments on the specific facts of the case. LEAF intervened at the Supreme Court of Canada to argue that, regardless of the implications for the two individuals involved, the decision in this case would have broad implications for women who were leaving relationships in similar circumstances to Ms. Rick.    

We only get involved in test cases that have the potential to change the law. We have made this decision based on our mandate and limited resources; much of our legal work is done by volunteer lawyers working together as a committee.

We often hear of cases that may have been decided unfairly or resulted in an injustice based on the facts of the case. However, we only get involved in cases that are arguing for a change in the law.

For example: if, in a family law case, the court decides that the husband disclosed all the information about the family assets, but in fact he didn’t, this would be an unfair result based on the facts of the case.  However, the question before the Supreme Court of Canada in Rick v. Brandsema was not if he hid assets from his ex-spouse, but whether the separation agreement was legal where assets had been hidden but both spouses had signed off on the agreement.  The question we were interested in was whether the law would allow for separation agreements to be upheld if one person did not fully disclose.   This is a question of law, rather than fact.

One of the important ways that we learn about cases we might want to get involved in is through word of mouth. We rely on lawyers and advocates calling to let us know about a case they are working on that may be of interest to us as an intervention. We usually intervene when a case goes to appeal, because this is usually the stage of proceedings in which interveners can have the most impact on the development of the law.   

What issues is West Coast LEAF most interested in?

We consider cases that deal with: how equality law is defined and applied; access to justice issues; violence against women; poverty issues; and many other issues impacting women’s equality. If a case arises that has the potential to change the law on these or other issues of concern to West Coast LEAF, we consider whether it is an appropriate case to intervene in, given our resource limitations.

While we do not provide direct services to women, we play a broader role in advocating for changes to the law to improve women’s equality in BC, through law reform, education and intervening in test case litigation.

If you need legal assistance in your case, please contact a lawyer or advocate. Please visit clicklaw.ca for more information about legal resources in BC.