Wikipedia

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by CanadianCaesar (talk | contribs) at 00:22, 26 March 2006 (→National values: simplify). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a constitutionally entrenched bill of rights which forms the first part of the Constitution Act, 1982, added to the Constitution of Canada in 1982. Its purpose is to protect certain political and civil rights of people in Canada from actions and policies of all levels of government.

File:Charter.jpg
The Charter, signed by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau in 1981.

An earlier bill of rights, the Canadian Bill of Rights (1960), introduced by the Diefenbaker government, was not constitutionally entrenched and thus had a far more limited scope and was easily amendable. Desires to improve upon this rights protection, the general human rights and freedoms movement that grew after World War II and was enunciated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,[1] and intentions to unify Canadians around a certain set of principles, led to the Charter being enacted by the government of Pierre Trudeau.

One of the most notable effects of the adoption of the Charter was to greatly expand the scope of judicial review, as the Charter makes its guarantees and its expectations on the role of judges in carrying them out more explicit than had the Bill of Rights. The courts, when confronted with violations of Charter rights, have carried on their practices from earlier times when Canadian case law was primarily concerned with resolving issues of Canadian federalism, namely striking down unconstitutional statutes or parts of statutes. However, courts also have new powers to enforce more creative remedies and exclude more evidence in trials than was typical under the common law and under a system of government that, being influenced by Canada's mother country the United Kingdom, emphasized Parliamentary supremacy. The result was that the Charter would inspire both passionate support and fierce opposition among Canadians.

Features of the Charter

Under the Charter, all people in Canada enjoy certain fundamental freedoms (under section 2), namely freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and freedom of the press, peaceful assembly, and freedom of association. Canadian citizens (and in some cases, permanent residents and other people in Canada, including corporations) also enjoy the following rights:

democratic rights: generally, the right to participate in political activities and to a democratic form of government:
Section 3: the right to vote and to eligibility to serve as member of a legislature.
Section 4: a maximum duration of legislatures is set at five years.
Section 5: an annual sitting of legislatures is required as a minimum.
mobility rights (section 6): the right to enter and leave Canada, and to move to and take up residence in any province, or to reside outside Canada.
legal rights: rights of people in dealing with the justice system and law enforcement, namely:
Section 7: life, liberty, and security of the person.
Section 8: freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.
Section 9: freedom from arbitrary detention.
Section 10: rights on arrest or detention, including the right to retain a lawyer and to be informed of that right.
Section 11: rights in criminal and penal matters such as the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
Section 12: freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.
Section 13: rights not to incriminate oneself.
Section 14: rights to an interpreter in a court proceeding .
equality rights (section 15): equal treatment before and under the law, and equal protection and benefit of the law without discrimination.
language rights: generally, the right to use either the English or French languages in communications with Canada's federal government and certain provincial governments. Specifically, the language laws enshrined in the Charter include:
Section 16: English and French as official languages of Canada and New Brunswick.
Section 16.1: English New Brunswick and French New Brunswick are equal.
Section 17: The right to use either official language in Parliament or the New Brunswick legislature.
Section 18: The statutes and proceedings of Parliament and the New Brunswick legislature are to be printed in both official languages
Section 19: Both official languages may be used in federal and New Brunswick courts.
Section 20: The right to communicate with and be served by the federal and New Brunswick governments in either official language.
Section 21: Existing constitutional language rights regarding English and French are sustained.
Section 22: Existing rights to use other languages are not affected by the language rights in the Charter.
minority language education rights (Section 23): rights for certain citizens belonging to French or English-speaking minority communities to be educated in their own language.

These rights are generally subject to the reasonable limitations clause (section 1) and the notwithstanding clause (section 33). The so-called notwithstanding clause authorizes governments to temporarily override the rights and freedoms in sections 2 and 7-15 for up to five years, subject to renewal. It has never been invoked by the Canadian federal government, and some have speculated that its use would be politically costly. In the past, the notwithstanding clause has been invoked by the province of Quebec, which has never ratified the Charter but is subject to it nonetheless. The provinces of Saskatchewan and Alberta have also invoked the notwithstanding clause, to protect back-to-work legislation and an exclusively heterosexual definition of marriage, respectively.

The limitations clause in section 1 allows governments to justify certain infringements of Charter rights and allows courts to uphold such laws.

Other sections that help understand how the Charter works in practice include:

The preamble: Identification of founding principles.
Section 24: The courts may enforce Charter rights.
Section 25: The Charter does not derogate existing Aboriginal rights and freedoms.
Section 26: Other rights and freedoms in Canada are not invalidated by the Charter.
Section 27: The Charter is to be interpreted in a multicultural context.
Section 28: All Charter rights are guaranteed equally to men and women.
Section 29: The rights of religious schools are preserved.
Section 30: A clarification on the applicability of the Charter in the territories.
Section 31: The Charter does not extend the rights of legislatures.
Section 32: The Charter is binding on the federal government (and the territories under its authority) and on the provincial governments; people do not have rights against other people.
Section 34: Citation (ie., this section states that the first 34 sections of the Constitution Act, 1982 may be collectively referred to as the "Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms").

History

File:Dief Bill of Rights.jpg
John Diefenbaker holds the Canadian Bill of Rights.

Many of the rights and freedoms that are protected under the Charter have their roots in other Canadian laws and legal precedents, sometimes known as the Implied Bill of Rights. These rights include freedom of speech, habeas corpus and the presumption of innocence.[2] The Canadian Bill of Rights, which the Canadian Parliament enacted in 1960, compiled many of these rights, but it was only applicable to the federal government as, unlike the Charter, it was not part of the Constitution of Canada. As a simple Act of Parliament rather than a constitutional amendment, the courts also interpreted it narrowly, only on the rare occation using it to find a contrary law inoperative. The Bill of Rights, it should be noted, did not contain many of the rights now in the Charter, such as the right to vote or mobility rights within Canada. Canada's official bilingualism, constitutionalized under section 16 of the Charter, was never recognized either by the Canadian Bill of Rights or the Implied Bill of Rights; it was first established by statute, the Official Languages Act, in 1969.

Talk of introducing a constitutional bill of rights in Canada became the subject of more serious attention in 1967, as governments were interested in reforming the Constitution in general, inspired by the one-hundredth anniversary of Confederation. Subsequently the Liberal Attorney General Pierre Trudeau appointed law professor Barry Strayer to research a potential bill of rights. Strayer's essay advocated protection for language rights, methods to limit rights that later became the Charter's limitations and notwithstanding clauses, and excluding economic rights. Legal scholars such as Walter Tarnopolsky provided advice. [3] In 1968 Strayer was made the Director of the Constitutional Law Division of the Privy Council Office and in 1974 became Assistant Deputy Minister of Justice. Over these years, Strayer played a role in writing the bill that was later adopted.

Meanwhile, Trudeau, who had become prime minister in 1968, still very much wanted a bill of rights and negotiated the Victoria Charter in 1971, which would have achieved a constitutional bill of rights as well as the patriation of the Constitution. The Victoria Charter was not successful in either objective. Trudeau, however, would continue with his efforts to patriate the Constitution, finally suceeding in 1981-1982 with the passage of the Canada Act 1982, which enacted the Constitution Act, 1982.

File:Canada Act signing.jpg
With Queen Elizabeth II's approval, the Charter was brought into effect in Ottawa on April 17, 1982. Trudeau stands front, second left to the Queen; Attorney General Jean Chrétien stands left to Trudeau.

The inclusion of a charter of rights in the Constitution Act was a much debated issue during patriation. After the 1980 Quebec referendum, during which Trudeau had promised constitutional change, Trudeau spoke on television in October 1980 and announced his intention to constitutionalize a bill of rights that would include fundamental freedoms, democratic guarantees, freedom of movement, legal rights, equality and language rights. He did not want a notwithstanding clause. While his proposal gained popular support, provincial leaders opposed the potential limits on their powers. At a suggestion of the opposition Conservatives, Trudeau's government agreed to committee of Senators and MPs to further examine the bill of rights as well as the patriation plan in general. During this time, 90 hours were spent on the bill of rights alone, all filmed for television, while civil rights experts and interest groups put forward their perceptions on the Charter's flaws and omissions and how to remedy them. As Canada had a parliamentary system of government, and as judges were perceived not to have enforced rights well in the past, it was questioned whether the courts should be named as the enforcers of the Charter or whether elected politicians should be trusted instead. Eventually, however, it was decided courts would have the responsibility, as Trudeau wanted. At the urging of civil libertarians, judges could even now exclude evidence in trials if it was acquired in breach of Charter rights in certain circumstances, something the Charter was not originally going to provide for. As the process continued, more rights were added to the Charter, including equality rights for people with disabilities, more sex equality guarantees and a recognition of Canada's multiculturalism. The limitations clause was also reworded to concentrate less on the importance of parliamentary government and more on justifiability of limits in free societies; the latter logic was more in line with rights developments around the world after World War II.[4]

As the provinces still had doubts, Trudeau was forced to include the notwithstanding clause to allow governments to opt out of certain obligations under the Charter. Pressure from provincial governments (which in Canada have jurisdiction over property) and from the left in the country, especially the New Democratic Party, prevented Trudeau from including any rights protecting private property. Nevertheless Quebec did not ratify the Charter (or the Canada Act 1982), either because it was then led by the sovereigntist Parti Québécois or because it felt excluded from the negotiations. As Jean Chrétien, who was Attorney General at the time, later recounted in his memoirs, some of the Quebec representatives did provide input into the Charter because they shared some of the underlying principles.[5]

While the Charter was adopted in 1982, it was not until three years later in 1985 that the main provisions regarding equality rights (section 15) came into effect. The delay was meant to give the federal and provincial governments an opportunity to review pre-existing statutes and strike potentially unconstitutional inequalities.

The Charter has also been amended since its enactment, as section 25 was amended in 1983 to explicitely tolerate more rights regarding Aboriginal land claims and section 16.1 was added in 1993. A proposed Rights of the Unborn Amendment in 1986-1987, which would have enshrined fetal rights, failed in the federal Parliament. Proposed constitutional amendments in 1992, the Charlottetown Accord, were never passed. They would have specifically required the Charter to be interpreted in a manner respectful of Quebec's distinct society, and would have added further statements to the Constitution Act, 1867 regarding racial and sexual equality and collective rights, and about minority language communities. These provisions, however, were so vague that Trudeau, then out of office, feared they would actually conflict with and undermine the Charter individual rights and equality rights and their judicial review, and favour the policies of provincial governments, who were given responsibility over the linguistic minorities.[6]

In 2005, when Nunatsiavut, an Inuit region of Newfoundland and Labrador, achieved self-government, it enacted a constitution which recognized the authority of the Charter.[7]

Interpretation and enforcement

The task of interpreting and enforcing the Charter falls to the courts, with the Supreme Court of Canada being the ultimate authority on the matter. With the Charter's supremacy confirmed by section 52 of the Constitution Act, 1982, the courts continued their practice of striking down statutes or parts of statutes as they had with earlier case law regarding federalism. However, under section 24 of the Charter courts also gained new powers to enforce creative remedies and exclude more evidence than was typical under the common law. Courts have since made many important decisions, including R. v. Morgentaler (1988), which struck down Canada's abortion law, and Vriend v. Alberta (1998), which read equal treatment into a law that had been discriminatory toward homosexuals.

File:SSC-Courtroom.jpg
The courtroom of the Supreme Court of Canada, the chief authority on the interpretation of the Charter.

Courts have developed various tests and precedents for interpreting specific provisions of the Charter. These include the Oakes test for section 1, set out in the case R. v. Oakes (1986), or the Law test for section 15, developed in Law v. Canada (1999). Since Re B.C. Motor Vehicle Act (1985), various approaches to defining and expanding the scope of fundamental justice under section 7 have been developed. (For more information, see the articles on each Charter section).

Since early cases like Hunter v. Southam (1984) and R. v. Big M Drug Mart (1985), courts have embraced a purposive interpretation of Charter rights, which emphasizes not the traditional, limited understanding of what each right meant when the Charter was adopted in 1982 but rather changing the scope of rights as appropriate to fit their general purpose; this has been tied to a generous interpretation, meaning that the purpose of rights is assumed to be to increase the rights and freedoms of people in a variety of circumstances, at the expense of the powers of governments. Constitutional scholar Peter Hogg has approved of the generous approach in some cases, although in others he argued the purpose of the rights was not to achieve a set of rights as broad as courts have imagined.[8] Indeed, this approach has not been without its critics. Scholars Morton and Knopff have been very critical of this phenomenon, noting that although it has been done with reference to the living tree doctrine, a principle which they feel is sound, it has extended past a reasonable use of the living tree doctrine. When the doctrine is applied right, the authors claimed, "The elm remained an elm; it grew new branches but did not transform itself into an oak or a willow." In other words, the doctrine can be used, for example, so a right is upheld even when a government threatens to violate it with new technology, as long as the essential right remains the same; but the authors charge that the courts have used the doctrine to "create new rights." As an example, the authors note that the Charter right against self-incrimination has been extended to cover scenarios in the justice system that had previously been unregulated by self-incrimination rights in other Canadian laws.[9]

Another general approach to interpreting Charter rights is to consider legal precedent regarding the United States Bill of Rights, which influenced the Charter and has generated a great deal of thoughts on the extent of rights in a common law, democratic system and how they should be enforced by courts. However, American precedent is not considered infallible, as the Supreme Court of Canada has referred to the Canadian and American bills as being "born to different countries in different ages and in different circumstances."[10]

Legal organizations have also been formed and frequently intervene in cases to assist courts in the process of interpreting the Charter. A notable example would be the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF).

One approach to the Charter taken by the courts that involves more participation by elected governments is the dialogue principle.

Comparisons with other human rights instruments

 
The United States Bill of Rights has influenced the text of the Charter but is interpreted more narrowly.

Some Members of Parliament saw the movement to entrench a charter as contrary to the British model of Parliamentary supremacy. Others would say that the European Convention on Human Rights has now limited British parliamentary power to a greater degree than the Canadian Charter limited the power of the Canadian Parliament and provincial legislatures when it was adopted in 1982. Constitutional scholar Peter Hogg has speculated that the British adopted the European Convention partly because they were inspired by the similar Canadian Charter.[11]

It is no accident that the Canadian Charter is similar to the European Convention (ECHR), specifically in relation to the limitations clauses contained in the European Convention. The underlying reason for this fundamental similarity between the ECHR and the Charter lies in the fact that the Canadian Charter and the European Convention are both inspired by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is because of this similarity with European human rights law that the Supreme Court of Canada turns not only to the Constitution of the United States case law but also the European Court of Human Rights cases in interpreting the Charter.

With regard to the United States Bill of Rights, the Supreme Court of Canada has often approached rights in the Canadian Charter with a view that they are more generous. As the US Bill of Rights has no limitations clause or notwithstanding clause, the Supreme Court of the United States has to define rights provisions themselves narrowly. For this reason, fundamental justice (in section 7 of the Canadian Charter) is interpreted more substantively than due process, its US equivalent. Freedom of expression in section 2 also has a more wide-ranging scope than the First Amendment to the United States Constitution's freedom of speech.[12] Section 28 of the Charter also performs a function similar to what the Equal Rights Amendment would have for the US, but currently that Amendment is unratified. This may be because in Canada there was no unfavourable reaction comparable to that of the religious right in the United States,[13] although Canadian feminists had to stage large protests to achieve the inclusion of the section.

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights has several parallels with the Canadian Charter, but in some cases the Covenant goes further in its text. For example, a right to legal aid has been read into section 10 of the Charter (the right to counsel), but the Covenant explicitly guarantees the accused need not pay "if he does not have sufficient means."[14]

The Canadian Charter has little to say, explicitly at least, about economic and social rights. On this point, it stands in marked contrast with the Quebec Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. This is also in notable contrast with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. There are some who feel economic rights ought to be read into section 7 rights to security of the person and section 15 equality rights to make the Charter similar to the Covenant, as economic rights can relate to a decent standard of living and help the civil rights flourish in a liveable environment. Canadian courts, however, have been hesitant in this area, calling economic rights political questions and adding that as negative rights, economic rights are questionable.[15]

The Charter itself influenced the bill of rights in the Constitution of South Africa. [16]

National values

File:March-of-hearts.jpg
Homosexual Canadians rally for equality rights under the Charter in 2004.[1]

The Charter was intended to be a source for national values and national unity. As Professor Alan Cairns noted, "The initial federal government premise was on developing a pan-Canadian identity."[17] Trudeau himself later wrote in his Memoirs that "Canada itself" could now be defined as a "society where all people are equal and where they share some fundamental values based upon freedom," and that all Canadians could identify with the values of liberty and equality.[18]

The Charter's unifying purpose was particularly important to the mobility and language rights; author Rand Dyck has said that some scholars believe that section 23, with its minority language education rights, "was the only part of the Charter with which Pierre Trudeau was truly concerned."[19] Through the mobility and language rights, French Canadians, who have been at the centre of unity debates, would be able to travel throughout all Canada and receive government and educational services in their own language, rather than just in Quebec (the only province where they form the majority). The Charter is also supposed to standardize laws throughout the country and gear them towards a single principle of liberty.[20]

Former premier of Ontario Bob Rae has stated that the Charter "functions as a symbol for all Canadians" in practice because it represents the core value of freedom. Academic Peter Russell has been more skeptical of the Charter's value in this field. Cairns, who feels the Charter is the most important constitutional document to many Canadians, and that the Charter was meant to shape the Canadian identity, has also expressed concern that groups within society see cerain provisions as belonging to them alone rather than to all Canadians.[21] It should also be noted that issues like abortion and pornography, raised by the Charter, tend to be controversial.[22] Still, opinion polls in 2002 showed Canadians felt the Charter significantly represented Canada's identity, although many were unaware of the document's actual contents.[23]

The only values recognized explicitly by the Charter's preamble are recognition for the supremacy of God and the rule of law, but these have been controversial and of little legal consequence. In 1999, MP Svend Robinson proposed before the Canadian House of Commons that the Charter be amended so that the mention of God could be removed, as he felt it did not reflect Canada's diversity.

Section 27 also serves to recognize multiculturalism, which the Department of Canadian Heritage argues is prized among the people.[24]

Criticism

File:Charter-revolution.jpg
The Charter Revolution & the Court Party is a book by F.L. Morton and Rainer Knopff that is highly critical of the use of the Charter by judges, interest groups and the federal government.

While the Charter has enjoyed a great deal of popularity, with 82% of Canadians describing it as a "good thing" in opinion polls in 1987 and 1999 [25], the document has also been subject to published criticisms, both by the political left and right. One critic is Professor Michael Mandel, who wrote that in comparison to politicians, judges do not have to be as sensitive to the will of the electorate, nor do they have to make sure their decisions are easily understandable to the average citizen. This, in Mandel's view, limits democracy. Mandel has also charged that the Charter makes Canada more like the United States, especially by serving corporate rights and individual rights rather than group rights and social rights. Among the possible rights that Mandel has lamented for being excluded from the Charter include a right to health care and a basic right to free education (although the Charter does include minority language educational rights).[26]

American sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset has also criticized the Charter for making Canada more like the United States (in having constitutional rights). "At one fell swoop," Lipset claimed, the Charter "did away with the major constitutional difference between Canada and the United States."[27]

Morton and Knopff have also launched several charges against the Charter, including that the federal government has used it to limit provincial powers by allying with various rights claimants and interest groups. In their book The Charter Revolution & the Court Party, Morton and Knopff express their suspicions of this alliance in detail, charging that the Trudeau and Chretien governments have funded litigious groups. For example, the federal government supposedly uses the Court Challenges Program to support minority language educational rights claims. Morton and Knopff even claim that crown counsels have intentionally lost cases in which the government was taken to court for violating rights, particularly gay rights and women's rights.[28]

Political scientist Rand Dyck, in observing these criticisms, notes that while judges have had their scope of review widened, they have still upheld most laws challenged on Charter grounds. With regard to litigious interest groups, Dyck points out that "the record is not as clear as Morton and Knopff imply. All such groups have experienced wins and losses."[29]

The political philosopher Charles Blattberg has criticized the Charter for contributing to the fragmentation of the country, at both the individual and group levels. In encouraging discourse based upon rights, the Charter is said to inject an adversarial spirit into Canadian politics, making it difficult to realise the common good. Blattberg also claims that the Charter undercuts the Canadian political community since it is ultimately a cosmopolitan document. Finally, he argues that people would be more motivated to uphold individual liberties if they were expressed with terms that are much "thicker" (less abstract) than rights.[30]

See also

 
English Wikisource has original text related to this article:

Notes

  1. ^ Peter W. Hogg, Constitutional Law of Canada. 2003 Student Ed. Scarborough, Ontario: Thomson Canada Limited, 2003, page 689.
  2. ^ "Sources of Canadian Law", Department of Justice Canada. URL accessed on March 20, 2006.
  3. ^ "My Constitutional Summer of 1967", Reflections on the Charter, Barry L. Strayer, Department of Justice Canada. URL accessed on March 18, 2006.
  4. ^ Lorraine Eisenstat Weinrib, "Trudeau and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: A Question of Constitutional Maturation." In Trudeau's Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Edited by Andrew Cohen and JL Granatstein. Vintage Canada, 1998, pages 269-272.
  5. ^ Jean Chretien, Straight from the Heart, Key Porter Books Limited, 1994.
  6. ^ Michael D. Behiels, "Who Speaks for Canada? Trudeau and the Constitutional Crisis." In Trudeau's Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Edited by Andrew Cohen and JL Granatstein. Vintage Canada, 1998, page 346.
  7. ^ "Nunatsiavut Government: Labrador Inuit Self-Government", Nunatsiavut, Canada. URL accessed on March 17, 2006.
  8. ^ Peter W. Hogg, Constitutional Law of Canada. 2003 Student Ed. Scarborough, Ontario: Thomson Canada Limited, 2003, pages 722 and 724-725.
  9. ^ F.L. Morton and Ranier Knopff, The Charter Revolution & the Court Party. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2000.
  10. ^ Peter W. Hogg, Constitutional Law of Canada. 2003 Student Ed. Scarborough, Ontario: Thomson Canada Limited, 2003, pages 732; the case quoted was R. v. Rahey (1987) by Gérard La Forest.
  11. ^ "The Charter at 20", Philip Saunders, CBC News Online, April 2002. URL accessed on March 17, 2006.
  12. ^ Peter W. Hogg, Constitutional Law of Canada. 2003 Student Ed. Scarborough, Ontario: Thomson Canada Limited, 2003, pages 732-733.
  13. ^ Women's International Network News, "Women on the Move in Canada." Summer 1993, Vol. 19 Issue 3, page 71.
  14. ^ Hogg, Constitutional Law of Canada. 2003 Student Ed., pages 733-734.
  15. ^ Sarah Lugtig and Debra Parkes, "Where do we go from here?" Herizons, Spring 2002, Vol. 15 Issue 4, page 14.
  16. ^ Sarah Lugtig and Debra Parkes, "Where do we go from here?" Herizons, Spring 2002, Vol. 15 Issue 4, page 14.
  17. ^ "The Charter at 20", Philip Saunders, CBC News Online, April 2002. URL accessed on March 25, 2006.
  18. ^ Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Memoirs, Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1993, pages 322-323.
  19. ^ Rand Dyck, Canadian Politics: Critical Approaches. Third ed. Scarborough, Ontario: Nelson Thomson Learning, 2000, page 442.
  20. ^ Hogg, Constitutional Law of Canada. 2003 Student Ed. Scarborough, Ontario: Thomson Canada Limited, 2003, pages 704-705.
  21. ^ "The Charter at 20", Philip Saunders, CBC News Online, April 2002. URL accessed on March 25, 2006.
  22. ^ Hogg, Constitutional Law of Canada. 2003 Student Ed. Scarborough, Ontario: Thomson Canada Limited, 2003, pages 704-705.
  23. ^ Joanne Byfield, "The right to be ignorant." Report/Newsmagazine (National Edition); December 16, 2002, Vol. 29, Issue 24, page 56.
  24. ^ Guide to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Human Rights Program. Canadian Heritage. URL accessed on March 25, 2006.
  25. ^ "The Charter at 20", Philip Saunders, CBC News Online, April 2002. URL accessed on March 17, 2006.
  26. ^ Rand Dyck, Canadian Politics: Critical Approaches 3rd ed. Scarborough, Ontario: Nelson Thomson Learning, 2000.
  27. ^ F.L. Morton and Ranier Knopff, The Charter Revolution & the Court Party. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2000. See quote on the back of the book.
  28. ^ F.L. Morton and Ranier Knopff, The Charter Revolution & the Court Party. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2000. Their other work is also decribed by Dyck.
  29. ^ Dyck.
  30. ^ Charles Blattberg, Shall We Dance? A Patriotic Politics for Canada Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003, especially pages 83-94

Bibliography

  • G.-A Beaudoin and E. Ratushny, The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms 2nd ed. Carswell, Toronto, 1989.
  • Charles Blattberg, Shall We Dance? A Patriotic Politics for Canada Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003.
  • Jean Chretien, Straight from the Heart, Key Porter Books Limited, 1994.
  • Andrew Cohen and JL Granatstein, eds. Trudeau's Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Vintage Canada, 1998.
  • Rand Dyck, Canadian Politics: Critical Approaches 3rd ed. Scarborough, Ontario: Nelson Thomson Learning, 2000.
  • P.W. Hogg, Constitutional law of Canada, 4th ed. Carswell: Scarborough with Supplement to Constitutional Law of Canada (2002-)
  • J.P. Humphrey, Human Rights and the United Nations: A Great Adventure New York: Transnational Publishers, 1984.
  • J.E. Magnet, Constitutional Law, 8th ed. (2001).
  • F.L. Morton and Ranier Knopff, The Charter Revolution & the Court Party. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2000.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Canadian_Charter_of_Rights_and_Freedoms&oldid=45490518"