In Focus

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Program Areas Education

Fundamental Freedoms

Public Safety

National Security

Equality

Fundamental Freedoms

“A truly free society is one which can accommodate a wide variety of beliefs, diversity of tastes and pursuits, customs and codes of conduct. A free society is one which aims at equality with respect to the enjoyment of fundamental freedoms…Freedom must surely be founded in respect for the inherent dignity and the inviolable rights of the human person.”

-Justice Dickson in R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd.

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects those freedoms that are considered fundamental in a democratic society.  These fundamental freedoms include freedom of opinion, thought, belief and expression, freedom of the press, freedom of conscience and religion, and freedom of association and peaceful assembly.  It is almost impossible to imagine how a democracy would work without protection for these most basic rights and freedoms, and yet they continue to be under attack in many ways.

CCLA’s Fundamental Freedoms Program aims to promote, protect and preserve these rights and freedoms.  Since 1964, CCLA has spoken out on the most important issues affecting the fundamental freedoms of Canadians including censorship, hate speech, religion in the schools, and the right to protest.

CCLA, through its Fundamental Freedoms Program, has been involved in cases that defined the permissible scope of restrictions on expression in the form of hate speech laws, obscenity laws, and the laws of libel and defamation.  In addition to challenging federal criminal laws that have the effect of curbing expression, CCLA has also challenged by-laws and actions on the part of municipal governments, school boards and university administrations that seek to silence dissenting or controversial views.

In efforts to protect and uphold freedom of religion,  CCLA has challenged the religious indoctrination of students through the public school system, and advocated for broad protections of the rights of individuals to practice their religion in their way. CCLA has also staunchly supported the rights of individuals and groups to engage in peaceful protests and have their voices heard.

Fundamental Freedoms is a core CCLA program. The following are part of the fundamental freedoms program:

Recent Work

Features & Multimedia

Op-Ed

Happy Birthday Charter of Rights and Freedoms!

“There is a song  by Jean-Pierre Ferland that romanticizes that it is at 30 that women are beautiful.  Before, so the rhyming goes, women are only pretty.  Is the Charter beautiful at 30? Has its features grown harmoniously? Does it project an air of maturity without cynicism or a sense of capabilities without [...]

Audio Audio

Religion in Schools

The debate over whether religion belongs in public schools has picked up again, with regards to whether – and to what extent – should a school accomodate students’ religion. The current debate focuses on a public school in Toronto that makes its cafeteria available to its (majority) Muslim students for Friday prayer

Here are some links [...]

Icon of camera Video

CCLA Reacts to Developments in Blogger Charles Leblanc Case

Since February 2012, CCLA has been monitoring a freedom of expression case out of New Brunswick, in which a local blogger, Charles Leblanc, had been charged with criminal libel under Section 301, a contentious provision of the Criminal Code, for comments he made about a Fredericton police officer. CCLA wrote to the Fredericton police chief [...]