Re Drummond Wren,

• Docket Number: Case No. 50
• Date: 31 October 1945
• Court: Superior Court of Justice of Ontario (Canada)

Canada, High Court of Ontario (In chambers).

(Mackay, J.)

Case No. 50

Re Drummond Wren.

International Law — Relation to Municipal Law — The Charter of the United Nations.

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION

United Nations — Charter of — Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

THE INDIVIDUAL IN INTERNATIONAL LAW

Individuals — Position in International Law — Human Rights — Charter of United Nations — Racial Discrimination — Public Policy — International Declarations as Evidence of Public Policy — Restrictive Covenant of Land — Attempted Restraint on Alienation to Jews.

See also Re McDougal and Waddell, decided by the High Court of Ontario (Chevrier, J.) on March 9, 1945. This case arose out of the Racial Discrimination Act, 1944 (Ont.), c. 51, which provides in s. 1 that “no person shall (a) publish or display or cause to be published or displayed; or (b) permit to be published or displayed on lands or premises or in a newspaper, or through a radio broadcasting station or by means of any other medium which he owns or controls, any notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation” indicating racial discrimination. A proposed conveyance of land contained a restrictive covenant that the land “shall not at any time be sold to, let to, or occupied by any person or persons other than Gentiles (non-Semitic) of European or British or Irish or Scottish racial origin”. The question before the Court was whether the registration of this conveyance under the Registry Act, R.S.O. 1937, c. 170, was a contravention of the Racial Discrimination Act. It was held that the Racial Discrimination Act applied only to the means of publication there enumerated, and did not apply to the registration of a conveyance. No valid objection to title existed, therefore, in that respect. Chevrier, J., said: “This covenant, restrictive in its purpose, is also discriminating in its effect, and I find it as a fact being directed to prevent the lands so affected from being sold to, or let to, or occupied by any person or persons other than Gentiles, i.e., No Jews need apply—but, is such discrimination, that is the one created by this covenant, contemplated by and expressed in the enactment? In my opinion it is not.

“The Legislature has spoken freely. It has chosen its words, which are the expression and indication of its thought. It was free to say less than it did. It was free to say more than it did. It chose to say just what it said, and I must decide what it said. I find that the Legislature intended to give expression, and did give expression, … to that form of discrimination which is ‘published, or displayed, or caused to be published or displayed, or permitted to be published or displayed on lands or premises, or in a newspaper, through a radio broadcasting station or by means of any other medium which he owns or controls’, and that the...