James Beddome (Manitoba) had written:
“but which section of the charter do you intend to invoke?
I would assume, section 2a) freedom of conscience, but you could also try section 2b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression. Interestingly you could also make an argument under section 8 “unreasonable search and seizure”.
James was right on the mark.
Section 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights & Freedoms is about freedom from “unreasonable search and seizure”, seemingly unrelated to my case.
However, because of the significance of Charter Rights and Freedoms (constitutional), the Courts have given broad interpretation to the various Sections.
The case law associated with Section 8 protects “a biographical core of personal information” such as a person in a free and democratic society would not want to hand over to the Government.
Courts must be given advance notice if Charter arguments will be used in a trial. And a written summary of the Charter sections and case law that will be used.
I paid two lawyers, one to do the written presentation for (as James said):
“section 2a) freedom of conscience, but you could also try section 2b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression.”
The other lawyer did the written presentation for the section 8 argument (privacy – freedom from unreasonable search and seizure).
It is viewed that the latter argument will win; the Government cannot meet the criteria to override Section 8. There is a possibility of difficulty with Section 2 arguments.