"The Promise of Brooks v. Canada Safeway Ltd: Those Who Bear Children Should Not Be Disadvantaged."

Resources for Feminist Research, Fall-Winter, 2007 by Lorna Turnbull

This article considers the defining moment embodied in the judgment of Chief Justice Brian Dickson in Brooks v. Canada Safeway Ltd. When he proclaimed that it is "... unfair to impose all of the costs of pregnancy upon half the population." The author argues that the case is important because of the history that preceded it and because of the breadth of its promise. She suggests that the promise has been somewhat betrayed by more recent cases dealing with the dual roles of many women as mothers and as workers that suggest a return to the formal approach to equality that Brooks clearly rejected (Journal Abstract).

Canadian Journal of Women and the Law, Special Issue: Defining Moments, vol. 17, no. 1 (2005), pp. 151-159.