The Past, Present and Future of Expressive Freedom Under the Charter
Osgood Hall Law Journal, Vol. 35, No. 1, 1997
74 Pages Posted: 9 May 2010
Date Written: 1997
Abstract
More than ten years have passed since the Supreme Court of Canada’s first interpretation of the Charter’s guarantee of expressive freedom in RWDSU v. Dolphin Delivery. This review of the past, present, and future of expressive freedom under the Charter is in three parts. The first — dealing with the past — traces the evolution of a methodology of expressive freedom in the “first generation” of s. 2(b) jurisprudence. It is followed by an examination of the status of expressive freedom at present, through comments on recent Supreme Court landmarks in Dagenais v. Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Hill v. Church of Scientology of Toronto , and RJR-MacDonald Inc. v. Canada (A.G.). The third part proposes a methodology for the future, which would enhance the Charter’s protection of expressive freedom by grounding the s. 1 analysis in a framework of principle.
Keywords: Canadian Charter, S. 2, Freedom of expression
JEL Classification: K10, K19
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation