What is the test for “perfect correspondence” between a benefit program and the actual needs and circumstances of the claimant?
Ontario, Canada
The following excerpt is from Simpson v. Canada (A.G.) et al., 2020 ONSC 6465 (CanLII):
Because “perfect correspondence” is not required, governments are not under a duty to customize benefits programs to the precise needs of individual recipients. As McLachlin C.J. explained in Gosselin v. Quebec, 2002 SCC 84, at para. 55: Perfect correspondence between a benefit program and the actual needs and circumstances of the claimant group is not required to find that a challenged provision does not violate the Canadian Charter... the inability of a given social program to meet the needs of each and every individual does not permit us to conclude that the program failed to correspond to the actual needs and circumstances of the affected group. … No matter what measures the government adopts, there will always be some individuals for whom a different set of measures might have been preferable. The fact that some people may fall through a program's cracks does not show that the law fails to consider the overall needs and circumstances of the group of individuals affected, or that distinctions contained in the law amount to discrimination in the substantive sense intended by s. 15(1).
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