This Week at the SCC: Who Gets Subsidized Childcare in Quebec?

3 Mar 2026 | Blog, Fantasy Courts

Editor’s Note: This post was written as a preview of an upcoming Supreme Court of Canada decision for the Fantasy Courts website and newsletter. Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.

🧸 On Friday, March 6, 2026, the Supreme Court of Canada will release its decision in Attorney General of Quebec v. Bijou Cibuabua Kanyinda. The appeal involves a Charter equality challenge asking whether Quebec’s exclusion of refugee claimants with work permits from “reduced-contribution” subsidized childcare discriminates under s. 15, and if so, what the remedy should be.

🎯 Last week, the SCC released Taylor v. Newfoundland and Labrador, 2026 SCC 5. The Court allowed the appeal in part. The appeal should have been heard even though it was moot. However, on the merits, Newfoundland and Labrador’s COVID travel restrictions limited mobility rights under s. 6 of the Charter, but the limit was justified under s. 1 given the “grave emergency” context.

🤖 78% of Fantasy Courts players, along with the SCCbot, called it correctly.

🔮 Head over to Fantasy Courts to lock in your predictions for this week’s decision. Scroll down for details on this week’s case or a recap of last week’s judgment.

Case to Predict: Can Quebec exclude refugee claimants from subsidized childcare?

Appeal by leave from Procureur gĂŠnĂŠral du QuĂŠbec c. Kanyinda, 2024 QCCA 144

SCC webcast 🎥 | factums 📃

What Happened?

Ms. Kanyinda entered Quebec in 2018 and made a claim for refugee protection. While waiting for a decision, she obtained a work permit and sought subsidized childcare for her three young children, but was denied because subsidized spaces were limited to people with formally recognized refugee status. She challenged the exclusion in s. 3 of the Reduced Contribution Regulation under the Charter.

What Was Argued at the SCC?

Appellant: Quebec says there’s no s. 15 breach because all refugee claimants are excluded, regardless of sex, and the evidence doesn’t establish a sex-based disproportionate impact tied to the rule itself. If there’s a breach, Quebec argues it’s justified under s. 1, and that the Court of Appeal’s reading-in remedy went too far (a suspended declaration would be the proper response).

Respondent: Kanyinda argues this is adverse-effects discrimination. Excluding refugee claimants from subsidized childcare predictably and disproportionately harms women refugee claimants, undermining access to work and integration. She says the infringement isn’t justified under s. 1 and that reading in or broad interpretation is the right remedy.

What Else Should You Know Before Making a Prediction?

This appeal had 23 interveners, including four attorneys general, underscoring the significance of this case. Most interveners aligned more closely with the position of the respondent refugee claimant. The Court will have to grapple with its relatively recent decision in R. v. Sharma, 2022 SCC 39, where it addressed a s. 15 claim in relation to sentencing and Indigenous offenders. The Court was split 5:4. Brown and Rowe JJ. (Wagner C.J. and Moldaver and CĂ´tĂŠ JJ. concurring) for the majority, and Karakatsanis J. (Martin, Kasirer and Jamal JJ. concurring) for the dissent. Notably, two of those judges from the majority—Brown and Moldaver JJ.—are no longer on the Court. I’m leaning towards the appeal being dismissed on the basis that there is a disproportionate impact based on gender.

SCCbot

This season, we’re also asking the SCCbot, an AI tool that predicts Supreme Court of Canada decisions, what it thinks the Court will do. The SCCbot is currently 3 for 4. For this week, the SCCbot is saying appeal allowed with moderate confidence. It reasons that the SCC is likely to rein in the QCCA’s s. 15 analysis for blurring step 1 and step 2 and for relying on broad social facts about women/childcare without a tighter, subgroup-specific showing that the exclusion of asylum claimants with work permits causes sex-based disproportionate impact.

Previous Case Recap: Taylor v. Newfoundland and Labrador

Taylor v. Newfoundland and Labrador, 2026 SCC 5

Held (5:4): Appeal allowed in part. The Court set aside the Court of Appeal’s mootness dismissal. Newfoundland and Labrador’s travel restrictions limited mobility rights under s. 6, and the limit was justified under s. 1. The dissenting judges were of the view that the breach was only of s. 6(2) and not s. 6(1).

What it was about: During early COVID, Newfoundland and Labrador restricted entry to the province (with limited exemptions). Ms. Taylor sought but was refused entry to attend her mother’s burial. The case proceeded even after the rules were repealed.

Key points:

  • The SCC exercised discretion to decide the case despite mootness.
  • The majority read s. 6 as protecting broad interprovincial mobility interests and found the travel regime limited those rights by making movement contingent on state authorization.
  • The Court concluded the restrictions were justified under s. 1 in the extraordinary uncertainty of early COVID-19.
  • There was significant division on where interprovincial mobility fits within s. 6(1) vs s. 6(2)(a), but not on the bottom-line outcome that the limit was justified.

📊 78% of Fantasy Courts players predicted correctly, and the SCCbot was also right.

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-Tom Slade