The 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees equal protection and equal benefit of the law to all individuals without discrimination "and, in particular, without discrimination based on...mental or physical handicap." This report identifies and clarifies policy-making questions and issues that are arising as educators translate the law into viable policies and programs for handicapped children. The report is divided into the following sections: (1) an overview of legislative and judicial trends in accommodating handicapped children's right to an appropriate education; (2) a survey of public interest group responses to current provincial legislative policies and programs for handicapped children (including representative examples of how these individuals and groups perceive current legislative initiatives); (3) an overview of recent United States constitutional and legislative developments in handicapped education and a discussion of Canadian legal trends in light of the American experience; and (4) possible applications and implications of the Charter's equality provisions that illustrate the meaning of equal benefit for handicapped children in education. Appendices include letters to ministers of education, special interest/advocacy groups, and human rights commissions (used in the research reported in section 2); a list of 24 references; and a table of 17 cases. (IW)