{"id":10102,"date":"2022-04-19T12:02:31","date_gmt":"2022-04-19T16:02:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rvf.ca\/?post_type=nouvelles&#038;p=10102"},"modified":"2022-04-19T12:02:31","modified_gmt":"2022-04-19T16:02:31","slug":"canadas-charter-of-rights-and-freedoms-is-40-years-old","status":"publish","type":"nouvelles","link":"https:\/\/rvf.ca\/en\/news\/canadas-charter-of-rights-and-freedoms-is-40-years-old\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada\u2019s Charter of Rights and Freedoms is 40 years old"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Canada\u2019s Charter of Rights and Freedoms just turned 40, so I thought I\u2019d write about how it works and why it matters.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I can\u2019t imagine Canada without the Charter.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><strong><span style=\"color: #008080\">It was proclaimed on April 17, 1982,<\/span><\/strong> when I was in high school and it outlines human rights and freedoms available to all people living in Canada, subject to limits that are \u201cdemonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #008080\"><strong>The five freedoms protected under the Charter are:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Freedom of conscience and religion<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Freedom of the press and media communication<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Freedom of association<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Freedom of thought, belief, opinion, and expression, and<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Freedom of peaceful assembly<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #008080\">The six categories of rights in the Charter are:<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Democratic rights<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Legal rights<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Mobility rights<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Equality rights<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Official language rights, and<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Language education rights<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Charter forbids discrimination based on colour, sex, age, religion, and physical or mental disability. It also affirms language rights and already\u2010existing Indigenous and treaty rights. It has influenced the creation and interpretation of some of Canada\u2019s key laws and policies, including the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, the right to equality for people with disabilities, the right to fundamental justice when claiming refugee status, the right to be taught in French, and the right to access safe injection sites. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.justice.gc.ca\/eng\/csj-sjc\/rfc-dlc\/ccrf-ccdl\/cases.html\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> are some important Charter-related cases.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><span style=\"color: #008080\"><strong>Section 23 of the Charter protects the education rights of speakers of French and English in minority contexts.<\/strong> <\/span>These rights apply as long as \u201cnumbers warrant\u201d. What numbers are required isn\u2019t defined in the document, so the Courts have adopted a &#8220;sliding scale&#8221; approach that accounts for different contexts and circumstances, from case to case and place to place.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages maintains summaries of key Court decisions and events relating to language rights <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.clo-ocol.gc.ca\/en\/language-rights\/court-decisions\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">here<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><em>Image: By Marc Lostracci,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Every_Canadian_Needs_A_Copy.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" data-saferedirecturl=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/url?q=https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Every_Canadian_Needs_A_Copy.jpg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1650469147139000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0ClUFHBaYo-laat1tcTAvC\">Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>Catherine Fisher, blogger<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10104,"parent":0,"template":"","categorie-de-nouvelle":[59],"class_list":["post-10102","nouvelles","type-nouvelles","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","categorie-de-nouvelle-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rvf.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nouvelles\/10102","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rvf.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/nouvelles"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rvf.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/nouvelles"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvf.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvf.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rvf.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10102"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"categorie-de-nouvelle","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rvf.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categorie-de-nouvelle?post=10102"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}