Charter Challenges are very common for the rights contained in section 2, our fundamental freedoms.

Section two of the charter describes our fundamental freedoms.

Remember freedom is simply the ability to live your life the way you want to without government interference.

These freedoms though are not absolute and are subject to the reasonable limits prescribed by section 1 of the charter.

When an individual feels that their Charter Rights have been infringed upon the courts will utilise the Oakes test to determine whether the infringement is a reasonable limit on their Charter Rights.

Dissemination is the process of spreading your ideas widely.

One’s freedom of religion is limited by the rights and freedoms of other individuals.

The essence of the concept of freedom of religion is the right to entertain such religious beliefs as a person chooses, the right to declare religious beliefs openly and without fear of hindrance or reprisal and the right to manifest religious belief by worship and practice or by teaching and dissemination.

The freedom guaranteed by section 2(a) also includes protection against governmental coercion in matters of conscience and religion. Coercion includes not only such blatant forms of compulsion as direct commands to act or a refrain from acting or suffer the consequences, but also indirect forms of control which determine or limit alternative courses of conduct.

Whatever else freedom of conscience and religion may mean, it means at the very least that the government may not coerce individuals to affirm a specific religious belief or to manifest specific religious practice for a sectarian purpose.

The charter protects not only the rights to hold and manifest beliefs but also the right to express and manifest religious nonbelief and refusal to participate in religious practice

Section 2B protects all forms of expression, whether oral, written, pictorial, sculpture, music, dance or film. The freedom of expression referred to, moreover, extends to those engaged in the expression for profit and those who wish to express the ideas of others, and to the recipients as well as the originators of communication.

Freedom of expression was entrenched in the charter to ensure that everyone can manifest thoughts, opinions, beliefs and indeed all expressions of the heart and mind, however, unpopular, distasteful or contrary to the mainstream.

Libellous statement: a false and malicious statement/publication printed for the purpose of defaming another person.

If the offending material is published in some fleeting form, as by spoken words or sounds, sign language, gestures and the like, then this is slander.

If it is published in more durable form, for example in written words, film, media and the like, then it is considered libel.

Slander/Libel is a grey area of the law: some the defences: Truth, Opinion, privileged (such as the floor of the legislature) proof the comment did not cause harm.

When a law is challenged as breaching an individual's freedom of expression, the court must ascertain whether the activity or action is conveying or attempting to convey meaning. If this is the case the content or activity would appear at face value to fall within the scope of the Charter's guarantee.

The term expression embraces all content of expression irrespective of the particular meaning or message sought to be conveyed and no matter how invidious (look it up, its a pretty nifty word!) and noxious the message.

Well the court has held that expression which is communicated in a physically violent form may not be protected, communication such as hate propaganda cannot be considered as violence nor as comparable to violence so as to fall outside the protection of this subsection.

Even threats of violence fall within the protection of the subsection and their suppression must be justified as reasonable under section 1.

Although drafted as a separate right, Canadian courts have not focused much attention on section 2(c). Instead, courts treat it as an aspect of a person’s freedom of expression, which is protected under section 2(b). Since people often gather to express themselves, courts have viewed freedom of expression as the more applicable freedom.

As with other Charter freedoms, peaceful assembly has its limits. The freedom is subject to the “notwithstanding clause,” which is section 33 of the Charter. The notwithstanding clause lets a government override a decision of a court that allows peaceful assembly.

For example, picture a group that peacefully assembled to protest student dress codes. Then imagine that the government passed a law prohibiting protests at schools. As such, the assembly is broken up. The protesters go to court and argue that this anti-protest law goes against 2(c) and the freedom of peaceful assembly.

The court agrees and finds the law unconstitutional and of no force. However, because of section 33, even if the court states that the law violates section 2(c) and is unconstitutional, the government can invoke the notwithstanding clause and have the law stand.

If the government does not utilise the notwithstanding clause, similar to other Charter freedoms, the freedom of peaceful assembly is subject to section 1. That section allows a government to justify an action that infringes freedom of peaceful assembly if it passes the Oakes test.

Let us return to our hypothetical dress code situation. but without the notwithstanding clause being applied. In this scenario, the court looks at the law and finds that while it violates section 2(c), it is justified under section 1. That is, the government justifies its actions and the court states that the law passes the requirements in the Oakes test. Because the law passes the Oakes test, the court would decide that even though it violates the freedom of peaceful assembly, the violation would thus be justified.

PLEASE NOTE YOUR TEXTBOOK ON PAGE 106 IS NO LONGER ACCURATE WHEN IT SAYS THE FOLLOWING:

"THE SUPREME COURT OF CANADA HAS RULED THAT FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION DOES NOT GUARANTEE TRADE UNIONS THE RIGHT TO BARGAIN COLLECTIVELY..."

Your textbook is also inaccurate on the same page when it says that the "RCMP cannot unionise."

They haven't yet, but they can.

Here is what is current:

The purpose of freedom of association is to guarantee that activities and goals may be pursued in common.

The Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) reiterated that the Charter right to freedom of association protects a “meaningful process of collective bargaining”: a process that gives employees both enough choice and enough independence to determine and meaningfully pursue their collective interests.

On January 30, 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) decided that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedom’s protection for freedom of association also protects the right to strike.

The SCC struck down a Saskatchewan law banning “essential services” public employees from striking because it violates this Charter right.

This protected right to strike thus applies to all public sector employees - including essential services employees.