SUPREME COURT OF CANADA CITATION: Alberta v. Hutterian ...

duty to accommodate, which applies to governments and private parties alike, may be helpful “toexplain the burden resulting from the minimal impairment test with respect to a particularindividual”(emphasis added): Multani, at para. 53, per Charron J.[68] Minimal impairment and reasonable accommodation are conceptually distinct.Reasonable accommodation is a concept drawn from human rights statutes and jurisprudence. Itenvisions a dynamic process whereby the parties — most commonly an employer and employee —adjust the terms of their relationship in conformity with the requirements of human rightslegislation, up to the point at which accommodation would mean undue hardship for theaccommodating party. In Multani, Deschamps and Abella JJ. explained:The process required by the duty of reasonable accommodation takes into accountthe specific details of the circumstances of the parties and allows for dialogue betweenthem. This dialogue enables them to reconcile their positions and find common groundtailored to their own needs. [para. 131][69] A very different kind of relationship exists between a legislature and the people subjectto its laws. By their very nature, laws of general application are not tailored to the unique needs ofindividual claimants. The legislature has no capacity or legal obligation to engage in such anindividualized determination, and in many cases would have no advance notice of a law’s potentialto infringe Charter rights. It cannot be expected to tailor a law to every possible future contingency,or every sincerely held religious belief. Laws of general application affect the general public, notjust the claimants before the court. The broader societal context in which the law operates mustinform the s. 1 justification analysis. A law’s constitutionality under s. 1 of the Charter isdetermined, not by whether it is responsive to the unique needs of every individual claimant, but