Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Winnipeg Free Press - October 14, 2006

Lawyer Denounces Ontario's New Adoption Info Law

An Ontario adoption law that allows birth parents and adoptees to access information about each other is "dumb" and violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, lawyer Clayton Ruby said yesterday. "This is a personal choice and the government has failed to respect the personal nature of that choice," Ruby said. "We say it's not only dumb, it's unconstitutional."

Winnipeg Free Press - June 21, 2009

Freedom Being Sacrificed to Cultural Political Correctness

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees "freedom of conscience and religion," and "freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media." A newspaper profile accused Dutch politician Geert Wilders, whose 2008 film Fitna interspersed images of terrorism with Islamic calls for violence, of "Islam-bashing" and "appealing to anti-Muslim prejudice." [Bruce Bawer] demonstrates the chilling effects of these attacks on freedom, as people, p...

Winnipeg Free Press - July 02, 2008

In Search of Canada Day

"I'm from Durban, which is a coastal town, and cold over there is 20 degrees plus," [Munsamy] said. "So I got off the plane, It was just -- ah, I could not speak. We went the next day and got warmer clothing." "I think it's excellent, because we get to live in a country that has a codified system of laws, in terms of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms," Munsamy said. "We decided to stay on because our daughter would never know discrimination. She would grow up in a stable democracy w...

Winnipeg Free Press - August 18, 2009

Toss Photo-Radar Suit: Officials

The RSAG filed its claim July 17 asking for a judicial declaration that the photo-radar program is illegal and is contrary to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The group asks that more than $258 million collected in fines be returned to those who've been ticketed by the cameras since photo enforcement's inception in 2002. Government and city lawyers will ask to remove provincial and city officials from the RSAG's claim. That includes community services committee chairman Coun. Gord...

Winnipeg Free Press - August 25, 2006

Readers Support Winkler Schools

Typical was Patrice Poirier, who wrote, "I think that if all the parents agree that this is what they would like their children to participate in, then it is a non-issue. They have had this practice for the last 100 years. Remember that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees ... "freedom of conscience and religion..." not freedom FROM religion." On the other hand, there was one [Winkler] mother who requested anonymity: "I don't believe religious exercises should be in the scho...

Winnipeg Free Press - March 10, 2009

Public Health Safety Trumps Confidentiality

That donor's DNA accounts for half the genes in [Olivia Pratten]'s body. She wants to know who he is and his medical history for reasons of personal identity, equality and the need to know her full genetic history. The secrecy regarding donor information seems to violate the equality rights of thousands of Canadians conceived through assisted human reproduction. While there is also secrecy regarding the identities of biological parents in adoption cases, adopted children may, in accordance w...

Winnipeg Free Press - August 23, 2008

Find Best Time to Disclose Disability

No one is obligated to tell a potential employer in advance about a disability or personal situation. Under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, every individual has the right to equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or disability. This protects us against discrimination during the recruitment and selection process -- no one can be denied an interview or job if they meet the requisite s...

Windspeaker - Vol. 25 Nbr. 9, December 2007

Senator Shares Story of Battle for Rights

[Sandra Lovelace-Nicholas] was appointed to the senate on Sept. 27, 2005. She is a Malaseet woman from the Tobique First Nation in New Brunswick who as her friend and colleague, Saskatchewan Senator Lillian Dyck, explained as she introduced Lovelace-Nicholas at the conference, "successfully applied to the United Nations to remove gender discrimination in the Indian Act, a tremendous feat, which many of us here today benefited from. The outcome of her appeal to the UN was Bill C-31, a federal ...

Winnipeg Free Press - August 29, 2009

Pilots' Mandatory Retirement Was Discrimination: Tribunal

"It's a pretty significant decision," said Raymond Hall, a now-retired Air Canada pilot in Winnipeg and lawyer who helped pilots George Vilven and Robert Neil Kelly in court. The tribunal initially rejected their complaints based on an exemption in the Canadian Human Rights Act letting employers defend mandatory retirement if the age is the industry norm, said Hall, and also rejected the argument that it was a breach of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Hall, who also represented a coalitio...