OTTAWA – The federal government’s $5,000 income eligibility requirements for CERB violated Charter equality rights but the breach was justifiable due to the urgency of the pandemic, according to a new Ontario Court of Appeal ruling.

In a unanimous ruling released last week, a panel of three judges overturned a lower court’s ruling that the government did not violate a disabled Ontario woman’s rights when it required applicants to the $2,000-per-month Canadian Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) to have earned at least $5,000 in the previous year.