Delwin Vriend | |
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 Delwin Vriend ca. 2008, photo taken by Anthony Easton | |
| Born | January 22, 1966 Sioux Center, Iowa, U.S. |
| Parent | Dennis & Ruth Vriend |
Delwin Vriend is a Canadian teacher who was at the center of a landmark provincial and federal legal case, Vriend v. Alberta, concerning the inclusion of sexual orientation as a protected human right in Canada.
Delwin Vriend was born in Sioux Center, Iowa, in 1966, to a Canadian father and an American mother. At the age of two, Vriend moved to Edmonton, Alberta with his family. The oldest of five children, he was raised with three siblings on an organic vegetable farm south of Edmonton in Leduc County. His parents were members of the local Christian Reformed Church, and he attended private Christian elementary and secondary schools, before enrolling at The King's College (now The King's University) in Edmonton. He then transferred to Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, to earn his physics and mathematics degree. After briefly being employed as an electrician, Vriend was asked to work at The King's College as a laboratory coordinator and chemistry lab instructor. [1] He worked in that capacity for three years.
In 1991, Vriend, who was open within his congregation about being in a same-sex relationship, was fired because his sexual orientation was deemed incompatible with a newly created statement of religious belief adopted by The King's College. [2]
Vriend attempted to file a discrimination complaint with the Alberta Human Rights Commission, but was refused on the grounds that sexual orientation was not protected under the province's human rights code. He subsequently sued the Government of Alberta and its Human Rights Commission. [3]
In 1994, an Alberta court ruled that sexual orientation must be treated as a protected class under human rights legislation. The provincial government subsequently appealed and in 1996 the decision was overruled by the Alberta Court of Appeal. This decision was then appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada in the case of Vriend v. Alberta, who finally ruled in 1998 that provincial governments could not exclude protection of individuals from human rights legislation on the basis of sexual orientation. [4]
Despite popular misunderstanding, [5] the Vriend case was not against The King's College, and Vriend never pursued a human rights complaint against the institution. The case strictly involved whether claims to the Human Rights Commission on the basis of sexual orientation could be investigated by provincial human rights commissions, and did not set any legal precedent for the resolution of such claims. Canadian human rights legislation does exempt religious institutions in specific cases typically involving the education of minors, and the Supreme Court ruling did not change that. However, some religious groups had lobbied the provincial and federal governments to invoke Canada's notwithstanding clause to overrule the decision. This course of action was never pursued by the Alberta government. [6]
The Supreme Court decision in Vriend vs. Alberta was used to argue provincial cases against bans on same-sex marriage throughout Canada. In addition, the decision has had greater ramifications within Canadian law outside of sexual orientation issues. [7] It has shaped legal precedent concerning provincial and federal government relationships as well as labor and other civil rights and constitutional laws.
Delwin Vriend left the Christian Reformed Church. After his termination, Vriend was unemployed for seven months before finding part-time employment with the AIDS Network of Edmonton Society and eventually a full-time position with the University of Alberta library. However, the publicity surrounding the case caused Vriend to leave Canada in 2000. [8]
In 2005, Delwin Vriend placed 44th on the list published by Alberta Venture magazine as one of this century's 50 greatest Albertans. [9]
In 2011 Delwin Vriend was inducted into the Q Hall of Fame Canada. [10]
Same-sex marriage was progressively introduced in several provinces and territories of Canada by court decisions beginning in 2003 before being legally recognized nationwide with the enactment of the Civil Marriage Act on July 20, 2005. On June 10, 2003, the Court of Appeal for Ontario issued a decision immediately legalizing same-sex marriage in Ontario, thereby becoming the first province where it was legal. The introduction of a federal gender-neutral marriage definition made Canada the fourth country in the world, and the first country outside Europe, to legally recognize same-sex marriage throughout its borders. Before the federal recognition of same-sex marriage, court decisions had already introduced it in eight out of ten provinces and one of three territories, whose residents collectively made up about 90 percent of Canada's population. More than 3,000 same-sex couples had already married in those areas before the Civil Marriage Act was passed. Most legal benefits commonly associated with marriage had been extended to cohabiting same-sex couples since 1999.
Egan v Canada, [1995] 2 SCR 513 was one of a trilogy of equality rights cases published by a very divided Supreme Court of Canada in the spring of 1995. It stands today as a landmark Supreme Court case which established that sexual orientation constitutes a prohibited basis of discrimination under section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Egale Canada is an advocacy organization founded in 1986 by Les McAfee to advance equality for Canadian lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people and their families, across Canada.
Same-sex marriage has been legal in Alberta since July 20, 2005 upon the granting of royal assent to the federal Civil Marriage Act. Alberta was one of the four Canadian provinces and territories where same-sex marriage had not been legalised before the enactment of the Civil Marriage Act, along with Prince Edward Island, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
John Wesley "Buzz" McClung was a historian, lawyer, jurist, and a judge of the Alberta Court of Appeal.
Vriend v Alberta [1998] 1 S.C.R. 493 is an important Supreme Court of Canada case that determined that a legislative omission can be the subject of a Charter violation. The case involved a dismissal of a teacher because of his sexual orientation and was an issue of great controversy during that period.
Franco-Albertans are francophone residents of the Canadian province of Alberta. Franco-Albertans may also refer to residents of Alberta with French Canadian ancestry, although publications from the government of Alberta use the term Franco-Albertan to refer to its francophone residents. In the 2016 Canadian Census, there were 86,705 Albertans that stated their mother tongue was French. In the same census, there were 411,315 Albertans that claim partial or full French ancestry.
The King's University located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, is a Canadian Christian university offering bachelor's degrees in the arts, humanities, music, social sciences, natural sciences, business, and education. King's is one of 26 publicly funded post-secondary institutions in Alberta. The University serves more than 900 students from across Canada and abroad, representing more than 16 nations.
Freedom of religion in Canada is a constitutionally protected right, allowing believers the freedom to assemble and worship without limitation or interference.
Canadian lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights are some of the most extensive in the world. Same-sex sexual activity, in private between consenting adults, was decriminalized in Canada on June 27, 1969, when the Criminal Law Amendment Act, 1968–69 was brought into force upon royal assent. In a landmark decision in 1995, Egan v Canada, the Supreme Court of Canada held that sexual orientation is constitutionally protected under the equality clause of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In 2005, Canada became the fourth country in the world, and the first in the Americas to legalize same-sex marriage. In 2022, Canada was the third country in the world, and the first in North America, to fully ban conversion therapy nationwide for both minors and adults.
In Canada, appeals by the judiciary to community standards and the public interest are the ultimate determinants of which forms of expression may legally be published, broadcast, or otherwise publicly disseminated. Other public organisations with the authority to censor include some tribunals and courts under provincial human rights laws, and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission, along with self-policing associations of private corporations such as the Canadian Association of Broadcasters and the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.
Canada (AG) v Mossop, [1993] 1 SCR 554 was the first decision of the Supreme Court of Canada to consider equality rights for gays. The case is also significant as one of Justice L'Heureux-Dube's most famous dissents where she proposes an evolving model of the "family".
The Foundation for Equal Families is a Canadian gay and lesbian rights group founded in 1994 following the failure of Bill 167 in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. The group's mandate is "Dedicated to achieving recognition and equality for same sex relationships and associated family rights through education and legal action". Meeting this mandate was accomplished by intervening in various precedent-setting legal cases, through representation at various pride parades and most notably in suing the Canadian federal government over failure to amend 58 pieces of federal legislation that were charter-infringing due to the definition of spouse.
Laurie Blakeman is a Canadian politician, who represented the electoral district of Edmonton-Centre in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. She is a member of the Alberta Liberal Party, and was first elected in the 1997 election.
National Coalition for Gay and Lesbian Equality and Another v Minister of Justice and Others is a decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa which struck down the laws prohibiting consensual sexual activities between men. Basing its decision on the Bill of Rights in the Constitution – and in particular its explicit prohibition of discrimination based on sexual orientation – the court unanimously ruled that the crime of sodomy, as well as various other related provisions of the criminal law, were unconstitutional and therefore invalid.
Human rights in Canada have come under increasing public attention and legal protection since World War II. Prior to that time, there were few legal protections for human rights. The protections which did exist focused on specific issues, rather than taking a general approach to human rights.
Hate speech laws in Canada include provisions in the federal Criminal Code, as well as statutory provisions relating to hate publications in three provinces and one territory.
This article gives a broad overview of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) history in Canada. LGBT activity was considered a crime from the colonial period in Canada until 1969, when Bill C-150 was passed into law. However, there is still discrimination despite anti-discrimination law. For a more detailed listing of individual incidents in Canadian LGBT history, see also Timeline of LGBT history in Canada.
The Edmonton Pride Festival is a 2SLGBTQ+ pride festival, held annually in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
The Alberta Human Rights Commission (AHRC) is a quasi-judicial human rights commission in Alberta, Canada, created by the provincial government.
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