Rights & Freedoms

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

How far do we go to promote individual rights & freedoms.

Section 1: laws have the ability to restrict individual rights & freedoms in defiance of the Charter within reasonable limitations to maintain a free and democratic society.

9 justices; the highest court in Canada that deals with constitutionality. Mandate is provided by the 1982 Constitution Act.
Prior to 1982, the idea of Parliamentary Supremacy was upheld.

Free & fair elections require individual rights & democratic rights.
Legal rights: prevents despotic abuse of prosecution
Charter within the Constitution: the rulebook which provides separation of powers.
Previously, there was an unwritten constitution: court precedent, Acts of Parliament and Tradition.

Provincial governments can ignore sections of the Charter for 5+ years.
- Must be invoked in writing within the law and invokes parliamentary supremacy.
Bill 101: English language minority rights reduced in Quebec. (later replaced with Bill 96)
Ontario: Notwithstanding clause invoked to clear homeless encampments.

Quebec Charter of Human Rights & Freedoms: includes positive rights, e.g. that to food, clothing & housing.

Anglophone/francophone/aboriginal peoples all have collective rights.
- where the group is a minority.
- Aboriginal treaty rights enshrined in the Constitution Act: e.g. that to out of season hunting
- Language education rights provided to minorities who speak our Official Languages.

Contemporary movements:
- LGBTQ+ rights
- Self-governance
- Terrorism
- Abortion
1950s - 1960s: the American Civil Rights movement campaigned for the end to discrimination against African Americans.
First Amendment Rights: in 1865, the 13th Amendment abolishes slavery. The Reconstruction of America begins.
- Former slave owners take over the south.
- Plessy v. Fergusson: a Supreme Court ruling that enables segregation, as long as they both have equal access.
- Harry Truman ends military segregation, in-part motivated by ideological conflict.
Jim Crow Laws: that enable segregation in the United States.
- e.g. Buses: all bus stations shall have separate waiting spaces and separate ticket areas.
De-facto discrimination: “white neighbourhoods” in Canada and the U.S.
De-jure discrimination: legal discrimination in the U.S., e.g. Jim Crow Laws

Brown v. Board of Education (1954): schools in all states shall be de-segregated or integrated.
In Arkansas, the 101st Airborne Division has to be sent to protect black kids who go to school. → as a result of the Arkansas governor disobeying the Supreme Court ruling.
Massive Resistance: against integrated schools → districts shut down; private schools are opened with vouchers for white kids.

Rosa Parks was asked to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama.
- Parks was arrested, who was a member of the Civil Rights Association.
A boycott of transit occurred; year-long boycott ended segregation on buses.

an arrest in protest; designed to generate photographs → a form of Civil Disobedience
walk-ins cause outrage amongst white peoples at pools and churches.

Voter Suppression Literacy Test in Louisiana: grandfather clause.
Signed by LBJ in 1965
- removal of legal barriers that prevented African Americans from voting
- widened the franchise → the furthest reaching civil rights legislation.
- Increased black voter turnout
Yet, in black communities, there are still fewer polling stations, no food/water to people in line and voter ID laws make it difficult to vote.