Imagine that you are a lawyer approached by the Law Foundation of Ontario. They have become aware of a case of a homeless man who claims that the City of Ottawa has discriminated against him by their recent actions.

The Law Foundation would like you to review the facts of this person's dispute and author a legal opinion as to whether his claim could be brought under the equality provisions of the Charter. If you determine that there is a reasonable chance of success the Law Foundation will fund all expenses for a Charter challenge and would like you to represent the individual involved. If not, the Law Foundation will pay for your services and seek a more appropriate case to take forward. The facts are as follows:

• Stephan is presently a 37-year-old, white man, and was raised as a francophone in Ottawa. He is now indigent.
• A few years ago, Stephan lost his job suddenly and shortly afterward his wife took their four children and left him for a new partner.
• Just after finalizing his divorce, his 53- year-old mother died suddenly. Ever since, although he has retained his basic mental health, he has not been able to fully cope. He lost his home in the divorce and has no place to live.
• He discovered that his friends were really his ex-wife's friends, and he has no relatives near-by to assist him in the most difficult time of his life. Stephan is now experiencing homelessness and has begun abusing alcohol as well as occasionally partaking of marijuana and crack cocaine if it is offered to him for use by his new friends on the street. However, he makes it a "policy" to never openly abuses substances in public. Stephan tends to sleep in the Byron Linear Park on a park bench directly across from a small fenced in children's playground. His normal routine is to arrive at 9 pm and set up his sleepingbag on the 7-foot-long bench, arrange his things and listen to the sounds of the city as he falls asleep. Normally, he awakes with the sun, packs his things up and heads downtown to an inner-city church for a hot breakfast. He has been doing this for a year in all kinds of weather each month of the year.
• Occasionally, residents of the expensive condominiums located directly behind the park bench that Stephane sleeps on have called the police to ensure he was provided shelter during the extremely cold winter nights.
• As well, on one occasion the police were called as a local resident of nearby Island Park Avenue when she objected to his presence. She was walking her young children to the park late one summer evening and claimed she felt "unsafe" as he was so close to her children playing in the park. Officer Wood investigated, and she assured the complainant, and later the Law Foundation, that Stephan did nothing criminal by sleeping on the bench and as he had no history of violence or inappropriate contact with vulnerable persons, like children, so she ended her investigation. Officer Wood left Stephan to sleep on the bench and thought nothing further of the incident. However, not satisfied, the resident began a petition and repeatedly complained to her municipal counsellor about the "problem children were facing when they went to innocently play in the park." One hundred and fifty residents signed the petition which demanded the City deal with homelessness in the local area. The local counsellor leapt into the matter by contacting the mayor and spearheading a new "park renewal program" for the entire city. As a direct result of these efforts, the City of Ottawa budgeted $500, 000 over three years to replace all benches in and near parks with new benches that provide arm rests every meter for any bench more than one meter long. One evening Stephan showed up to sleep on his bench but discovered it had been replaced with a new bench with arm rests. As he could not laydown across the bench, he looked for another place to sleep which he found near a local dog park. However, talking to a City worker who was removing a bench days later he now realizes the bench near the dog park will soon be removed. When a local C.B.C. Radio One journalist recently caught wind of this story she contacted the mayor and asked him why he was preventing a poor homeless man from sleeping in the Byron Linear Park as he has done nothing wrong. The mayor Mark Sutcliffe commented that "This has nothing to do with him being poor, our hearts go out to anyone in his situation, but the lawforbids rich and poor alike to sleep in parks. The park renewal plan is a humane way of enforcing bylaws forbidding people from sleeping in parks by encouraging homeless people to find appropriate places to bed down for the evening without the need to arrest people for violating local by-laws. Sleeping on park benches causes problems in parks for residents and may not be sanitary for other residents if they are used as beds. It also addresses an important infrastructure need of taxpayers to be comfortable when they utilize the public resources that they pay for. This plan is widely supported by residents and was unanimously approved by City Council." Contacted by the C.B.C. for a response Stephan says he feels ill-treated by the City as they are not treating him equally. They are "penalizing me for being poor - who ever heard of a rich person sleeping in a city park. Isn't my life hard enough without being prevented from sleeping on all park benches, especially as there is no room in the shelter for me? If the mayor wants to know about being sanitary, he should sleep in a shelter and see if he gets bed bugs after doing so." The mayor's office declined further comment but confirmed that its shelters have been operating at 110% capacity for over a year and there is no room for new persons to access City run shelters. Please write me a brief essay that I can elaborate further on the points based upon the foregoing fact scenario that scrutinizes whether Stephan can prevent the City of Ottawa from removing old benches and replacing them with benches that effectively prevent a homeless person from sleeping on the bench over night. In other words, would Stephan succeed in an equality claim under the Charter against the City? Remember to address whether the Charter applies to this situation in the first place under section 32 and whether Stephan's rights to equality has been violated under section 15 of the Charter. If Stephan's rights have been violated under section 15 by the new park renewal program, please explain if that violation can be justified under section 1 of the Charter. Please remember to fully justify your legal position within the terms of the relevant Constitutional case law.