The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, often simply referred to as the Charter in Canada, is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada, forming the first part of the Constitution Act, 1982. The Charter guarantees certain political rights to Canadian citizens and civil rights of everyone in Canada from the policies and actions of all areas and levels of the government. It is designed to unify Canadians around a set of principles that embody those rights. The Charter was signed into law by Queen Elizabeth II of Canada on April 17, 1982, along with the rest of the Act.
Franco-Manitobans are French Canadians or Canadian francophones living in the province of Manitoba. According to the 2016 Canadian Census, 40,975 residents of the province stated that French was their mother tongue. In the same census, 148,810 Manitobans claimed to have either full or partial French ancestry. There are several Franco-Manitoban communities throughout Manitoba, although the majority are based in either the Winnipeg Capital Region or the Eastman Region.
Joseph Atallah "Joe" Ghiz was the 27th premier of Prince Edward Island from 1986 to 1993, an educator of law and a justice of the Supreme Court of Prince Edward Island. He was the father of Robert Ghiz, the 31st premier of Prince Edward Island. He was the first premier of a Canadian province to be of non-European descent, since followed by Ujjal Dosanjh and Ghiz's son, Robert.
Fransaskois or Franco-Saskatchewanians are French Canadians or Canadian francophones living in the province of Saskatchewan. According to the 2016 Canadian Census, approximately 17,735 residents of the province stated that French was their mother tongue. In the same census, 125,810 Saskatchewanians claimed full or partial French ancestry. There are several Fransaskois communities in the Saskatchewan, although the majority of francophones in Saskatchewan reside in the province's three largest cities, Saskatoon, Regina, and Prince Albert.
The legal dispute over Quebec's language policy began soon after the enactment of Bill 101, establishing the Charter of the French Language, by the National Assembly of Quebec in 1977.
The official languages of Canada are English and French, which "have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the Parliament and Government of Canada," according to Canada's constitution. "Official bilingualism" is the term used in Canada to collectively describe the policies, constitutional provisions, and laws that ensure legal equality of English and French in the Parliament and courts of Canada, protect the linguistic rights of English and French-speaking minorities in different provinces, and ensure a level of government services in both languages across Canada.
Franco-Albertans are francophone residents of the Canadian province of Alberta. Franco-Albertans may also refer to residents of Alberta with French Canadian ancestry, although publications from the government of Alberta use the term Franco-Albertan to refer to its francophone residents. In the 2016 Canadian Census, there were 86,705 Albertans that stated their mother tongue was French. In the same census, there were 411,315 Albertans that claim partial or full French ancestry.
Judicial disqualification, also referred to as recusal, is the act of abstaining from participation in an official action such as a legal proceeding due to a conflict of interest of the presiding court official or administrative officer. Applicable statutes or canons of ethics may provide standards for recusal in a given proceeding or matter. Providing that the judge or presiding officer must be free from disabling conflicts of interest makes the fairness of the proceedings less likely to be questioned.
Doucet-Boudreau v Nova Scotia [2003] 3 S.C.R. 3, 2003 SCC 62, was a decision of the Supreme Court of Canada which followed the Nova Scotia Supreme Court's finding that a delay in building French language schools in Nova Scotia violated the claimants' minority language educational rights under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This finding led to an important debate regarding the scope of section 24(1) of the Charter, which provides for remedies for those whose rights are infringed, and the applicability of the common law doctrine of functus officio. While the Supreme Court of Canada split on what constitutes an appropriate usage of section 24(1), the majority favoured a section 24(1) with broad, flexible capabilities.
J. E. Michel Bastarache is a Canadian lawyer, businessman, and retired puisne justice on the Supreme Court of Canada.
Section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the section of the Constitution of Canada that guarantees minority language educational rights to French-speaking communities outside Quebec, and, to a lesser extent, English-speaking minorities in Quebec. The section may be particularly notable, in that some scholars believe that section 23 "was the only part of the Charter with which Pierre Trudeau was truly concerned." Trudeau was the prime minister who fought for the inclusion of the Charter of Rights in the Constitution of Canada in 1982.
Section 17 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is one of the provisions of the Charter that addresses rights relating to Canada's two official languages, English and French. While the section 17 right to use either language within the Parliament of Canada repeats a right already anchored in section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, section 17 also guarantees the right to use both languages in the legislature of New Brunswick, the only officially bilingual province under section 16 of the Charter.
Mahe v Alberta, [1990] 1 S.C.R. 342 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada. The ruling is notable because the court established that section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms requires that parents of the official-language minority in each province have the right either to be represented on the school board, or to have a school board of their own, in order to provide adequate protection for the education rights of their children.
Section 18 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is one of the provisions of the Constitution that addresses rights relating to Canada's two official languages, English and French. Like section 133 of the Constitution Act, 1867, section 18 requires that all statutes and other records made by the Parliament of Canada must be available in both official languages. Section 133 places a similar obligation on the legislature of Quebec, and this is reaffirmed by section 21 of the Charter. Section 18 of the Charter places a similar obligation on the legislature of New Brunswick. New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province under section 16 of the Charter.
Lavoie v Canada, [2002] 1 SCR 769, 2002 SCC 23 is a leading decision of the Supreme Court of Canada on whether preference on basis of citizenship infringed equality guarantee under section 15(1) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The Court found that the federal Public Service Employment Act (PSEA), which gave preference to citizens when referring to departments, was discriminatory. The violation was saved under section 1 of the Charter as a reasonable limitation on equality rights.
Abram-Village is a Canadian rural municipality located in Prince County, Prince Edward Island.
Because the country contains two major language groups and numerous other linguistic minorities, in Canada official languages policy has always been an important and high-profile area of public policy.
The language policies of Canada's province and territories vary between the provinces and territories of Canada. Although the federal government operates as an officially bilingual institution, providing services in English and French, several provincial governments have also instituted or legislated their own language policies.
The Greater North Central Francophone Education Region No. 2, known in French as the Conseil scolaire Centre-Nord (CSCN), is one of Alberta's four French language school boards. French language education is intended for children who are eligible under section 23 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The CSCN is a composite board, operating both public and catholic francophone schools in Beaumont, Camrose, Edmonton, Fort McMurray, Jasper, Legal, Lloydminster, Red Deer, Sherwood Park, St. Albert and Wainwright. The CSCN receives funding for all students from the provincial Government of Alberta.
The education system of New Brunswick comprises public and private primary and secondary schools and post-secondary institutions. By the British North America Act, 1867, education falls entirely under provincial jurisdiction. There is no federal government department or agency involved in the formation or analysis of policy regarding education. Also by constitutional right, Roman Catholics are entitled to their own school system; this led in New Brunswick to contention in the early years of the nation, and, in 1871, to the first case sent from Canada to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, Maher v Town Council of Portland.
