What has the Charter done for you lately? A brief look at how the first 25 years of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has transformed the lives of ordinary Canadians.

• Author: Billingsley, Barbara
• Position: CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS - Law overview

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

On April 17, 1982, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms officially became part of Canada's Constitution--part of the supreme law of our country. Until that date, the main role of the Canadian Constitution was to give power to the government. The Constitution set up our Parliamentary system of government and divided law-making power between the federal and provincial governments. With the introduction of the Charter, the Constitution took on an additional, but opposite, function: to limit the power of government. The debate continued over whether the Charter also imposes positive obligations on government. The Charter guarantees particular rights and freedoms to the people of Canada and prevents the federal and provincial governments from passing laws which unfairly interfere with those rights. Canadian courts play the role of enforcer by responding to complaints that particular government actions unjustifiably interfere with the rights and freedoms recognized by the Charter.

But what has this fundamental change in our Constitution meant for ordinary Canadians? How has the Charter really impacted the everyday lives of the people of Canada? It is safe to say that before the introduction of the Charter, the Constitution did not play a large role in the daily lives of ordinary Canadians. Few Canadians worried about whether the government was using its law-making power in accordance with the Constitution. Over the past 25 years, however, the Charter has had a significant impact on the lives of Canadians. Many individuals have come before the courts to argue that their Charter rights have been unjustly violated by particular laws or acts of government. In deciding these cases, Canadian courts have given definition to the basic values of our society. The central point of this article is to demonstrate the substantial effect that the Charter has had on Canadian society by reviewing some specific examples of how Charter rights have been applied by the courts over the past 25 years.

In order to put these examples in context, however, it is helpful to first reflect on what Canadian human rights law looked like before the Charter was introduced. Before 1982, federal and provincial governments passed statutes (such as the Canadian Bill of Rights) which recognized the basic human rights of Canadians. These statutes, which remain in place today, however, are not, and never have been, constitutional documents. They are...