Fundamental Freedoms & Limitations To Fundamental Freedoms

Applying the Charter

The charter of rights and freedoms has influenced Canadian law for over ____ years (April 17,
1982). The charter has four guaranteed fundamental freedoms:

1. Freedom of religion
2. Freedom of peaceful assembly
3. Freedom of association

It also protects democratic rights, mobility rights, legal rights, equality rights, language rights
and First Nation and ___________ rights. In the charter some rights apply to everyone, while
others are only applied to Canadian citizens.

Under s 1 of the charter the _____________ __________clause you will discover that there are
limitations on your fundamental freedoms. In section 33 of the charter you will see that in some
cases the government can pass laws that override certain rights and freedoms in the charter it
allows parliament or the legislature of a province to __________ from certain sections of the
charter

Fundamental Freedoms
Fundamental freedoms can be found under ____of the Charter of Rights and freedoms
The fundamental freedoms are up to the courts to then interpret these provisions and may
sometimes affect other rights. The challenge for courts face with cases using s. 2 is __________
the freedoms of all parties involved.

Freedom of Religion
This is found under s. 2(a) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
When appearing in court it usually involves one of the 2 situations below:
1. An individual feels their right to religious ______ or ________ is being infringed
upon.
2. There is _________ to suggest that one religious viewpoint is overriding others.
An example of Freedom of Religion in court can be found in a case, which occurred in 1985,
known as the R v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd., [1985] 1 S.C.R. 295
In the case, the company Big M Drug Mart was charged with unlawfully carrying on the sale of
goods on a _________, contrary to the Lord's Day Act. Big M was acquitted at trial, and the law
was held to be unconstitutional. In determining whether the lord's day act was valid, the court
decided that the act _______________ against non-Christian Canadians, as compelling all
individuals to observe Sunday as a day of rest was considered discriminatory.
In recent case law, courts have held that ___________ must accommodate the interests of
employees with respect to the observance of their religious days.

Freedom of Expression
Found in section 2(b) of the Charter, it guarantees freedom of _________ , ________ , ________
and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communications.
Despite this the right to express yourself through speech, media, literary forms of expression may
at times ____________ the law. The freedom of expression provisions have often been
challenged under the hate law sections of the criminal code.
An example of Freedom of Expression in court, can be found in the case of R. v. Keegstra,
[1990] 3 S.C.R. 697 In this case an Alberta highschool teacher James Keegstra was charged with
willfully promoting hatred against an _______________ group. He believed his actions were not
hate speech but free expression of his opinions, despite this, he was still charged with promoting
hatred.
The ________ code defines an identifiable group as any section of the public distinguished by
colour, race, religion or ethnic origin.
In 2003 a private members bill was introduced to amend hate laws to include ________
__________. The criminal code now defines an identifiable group as any section of the public
distinguished by sexual orientation, colour, race, religion or ethnic origin. Anyone who incites or
promotes hatred towards these groups can be charged under the criminal code.
__________ laws also restrict freedom of expression under the criminal code. A leading case on
this issue is one we have already discussed in class; R. v. Butler, [1992] 1 S.C.R. 452. In this
case the _________ court developed a 3 part test for obscenity so as to create a more clear
guideline surrounding what constituted as obscenity in relation to freedom of expression.

Freedom of Association and Peaceful Assembly

Found under s. 2(c) of the charter, it gives Canadians the right to _______________ their
discontent with the government's actions and decisions.
Many people engage in protests as a way to express their discontent, a great example of this
would be environmental _________ and ___________. These activists are allowed to gather and
rally against deforestation and etc, so long as they maintain a _________ and civil protest. If the
gathering turns violent and unlawful, charges of contempt of court can be laid.
The Criminal code includes restrictions on these assemblies. According to s. 63 of the code,
_____ or more people who gather with a common purpose and cause fear to others can be
charged with unlawful assembly. Serious mass riot charges can be laid if the assembly actively
___________ the peace tumultuously.

Democratic Rights
These are found under section s. 3 of the charter and state, “Every citizen of Canada has the right
to _______ in an election of members of the house of commons or of a legislative assembly and
to be qualified for membership therein”
All Canadian citizens 18 and older are eligible to vote in Canada and when citizens choose not to
vote they deny themselves a voice in the resulting government. In the __________federal
election only 22.4% of 18-20 year olds cast a ballot compared to the ________ of 58 year olds
and up.
Canadian Citizens who have been _________ the right to vote, like federal inmates, raise legal
arguments that it is a violation of their democratic rights. Due to these legal arguments, the
Supreme Court in 2002 made a decision to allow federal inmates serving 2 or more years a
______ to vote in Canadian federal elections.

Mobility Rights
Found under the charter in ______ it states; “Every citizen of Canada has the right to enter,
remain in and leave Canada”. All Canadian citizens and individuals with __________ residence
status have the right to move to and from any province and territory.
Often the argument of violation of this right is raised in relation to cases of extradition.
Extradition is the legal __________ by one jurisdiction of a person to another jurisdiction to face
criminal prosecution.
An example of this can be found in the case United States v. Burns, [2001] 1 S.C.R. 283, 2001
S.C.C. 7. In this case 2 Canadian citizens were wanted for _________ in the US and were
arrested in Canada. American authorities wanted the men extradited back to the US, usually in
such situations Canada seeks assurance in the US not using the ________ ___________ on
anyone seeking refuge in Canada. In this particular case the Canadian minister of justice did not
seek out those assurances and thus the men argued their mobility rights would be violated if
extradited.
Limitations of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms

A right is something legal, moral or social that people are __________ to. While freedoms are
basic political liberties, they guarantee that an individual can act, think, be or do without
government interference. You can lose both your rights and freedoms if you for example commit
a crime and are sent to prison, but you can't be ____________ of your rights in Canada outside
of a fair and legal procedure based on clear, fair laws.

In Canada you are limited from fully expressing yourself in some situations because sometimes
your actions would not be tolerated or justified. If anyone could say or do anything in any
manner that you see fit it could ____________ on the rights of others.With guaranteed rights
comes the obligation that you will not use these rights to harm others in any way. The irony of
guaranteeing these rights is that we sometimes have to ____________ these same rights and
freedoms

In section 33 of the charter it gives the government the power to pass laws that might be
considered ______________with the rights in the charter and in effect override them.

Section 1.
Section one of the charter is called the reasonable limit clause. When the charter was first
__________ the terms “ reasonable” and “demonstrably justified” were not defined in the
legislation, so it was left to the courts to interpret their meanings.

R v. Oaks-The judges in the Supreme Court laid down a test on whether an action which is
considered a violation of rights could be justified. Basically David Oaks was charged with
possession of ___________ for the purpose of trafficking, the crown proved that he was in
possession of the narcotics and it was up to Oaks to prove that it wasn’t for trafficking, Oaks
argued that the shift to him to prove that he was innocent violated his ________ to be presumed
innocent until proven guilty.The narcotic control act (drugs and substance control act) was
______________.

This case is normally referred to as the oaks test, where the first criterion of the two part test is
whether a limit on rights and freedoms can be justified. Meaning that the courts must decide if
the _____________ of the law in question is sufficiently important to warrant overriding a
constitutionally protected right or freedom." In determining whether the objective is of sufficient
importance, the court will ask if it relates to _____________ ___________ which are pressing
and substantial in a free and democratic society!”

Once that has been figured out the second criterion is laid down and it consists of three parts

1. Is there a ___________ connection between the limitation of rights and the objective of
the legislation?
 2. Does the limitation impair rights and the objective of the legislation
3. Are the effects of the limitation ___________ to the objective?

In the oaks case, the Supreme Court characterized parliament's concern with reducing trafficking
as a sufficient justification for overriding constitutionally protected rights. However the Supreme
Court held that the shift of responsibility did not meet the _____________ ________________
component of the test. It held that there was no rational connection between the basic fact of
possession and the presumed fair.

In any charter case the burden is on the individual to first ____________ that a Charter right or
freedom has been violated.The burden then shifts to the government to show that the limit is
justified. The oaks test is ____________ to our law, it is continued to be used to determine the
validity of limiting a person's rights or freedoms.

Section 33
In order to have all the provinces sign the constitution in _______, a compromise section was
added to the charter to enable the federal and provincial governments to override some of the
rights and freedoms. So section 33 was added to the charter.Often referred to as the
___________________ clause, it enables governments to limit the application of the charter.

Invoking the notwithstanding clause allows the federal and provincial governments to pass
legislation that is ____________ with the rights and freedoms set out in s 2. As a safeguard the
legislation must be reviewed every _____ years.

Quebec passed all of its legislation notwithstanding the charter. Although Quebec did not sign
the constitution act 1982 the constitution still came into force and Quebec was bound by its
terms, so the charter since its part of the constitution still applied.

A significant case is FORD v. Quebec where s5. 33 of the Charter was used in Québec to
validate a French-language-only sign law. Essentially, Québec's Bill ______ had required that all
public signs were to be only in the French language. This law was challenged in the Supreme
Court and held to be unconstitutional. Valerie Ford was one of five business owners who
challenged the _________ of Québec's Charter of the French Language requiring public signs
and posters and commercial advertising to be only in the French language. The Quebec
government subsequently responded by passing Bill C-178, which allowed the French-language
sign laws to exist and not to contravene the Canadian Charter of Rights and freedoms.

The Saskatchewan government also used s 33 to measure the validity of back to work legislation
in 1986. The government was concerned with the potential for a long protracted ________
involving dairy workers and so it passed the legislation ordering the workers to return to their
jobs.

The Alberta marriage act was amended in _______ which basically stated that they recognize
same sex marriages.
Charter violations
If a law violates a charter right and cannot be ________ under the reasonable limit clause the
court may state the law to be unconstitutional.

Section 52 (1) of the constitution is called the ________ clause; it means that when a court
declares a law to be unconstitutional it has several options. It can strike down an entire law or cut
the particular provision that is at issue.The court can also use a process of ______ _______ the
legislation. If the law in question has been interpreted too broadly the court will narrow the
interpretation given to the section.

For example in the case of r v. Butler,the courts read down the obscenity legislation in order to
specifically restrict the type of actions that were considered to be obscene.The court can also use
a procès of reading in a term so that the legislation will stand and the court will not have to strike
it down.

In the case of Vriend v. Alberta, [1998] 1 S.C.R. 493 (see Chapter 4, p. 118), Delwin Vriend had
been fired from a Christian college in Alberta because he was a homosexual. He attempted to file
a _________ ________ complaint in Alberta but was prevented from doing so because the
province's human rights legislation did not contain the term "sexual orien-tation." In ruling that
the Alberta legislation violated _________ rights under the Charter, but not wanting to declare
Alberta's entire Individual's Rights Protection Act unconstitutional, the Supreme Court chose to
read in the term "sexual orienta-tion" as a prohibited ground of discrimination.

Sometimes the court will make a declaration that a law is unconstitutional but give the
______________ government body a certain time period in which to change the law. This
declaration procedure was used in the case of M. v. H., [1999) 2 S.C.R. 3 (see Chapter 6, pp.
175-176). In this case, the Supreme Court of Canada declared s. 29 of Ontario's ___________
Law Act to be of no force or effect. The effect of the declaration was temporarily suspended for
six months to provide time for the Ontario government to amend the legislation. The case set a
precedent, and subsequently many federal and provincial pieces of legislation were amended so
as not to discriminate against _________ __________..