CFE Blog

Courtesy of the Rouleau Commission I developed a late-onset interest in freedom of peaceful assembly (FPA) and s.2(c) of the Charter. Since then it has been an ongoing concern to me that in more than forty years s.2(c) has not received an authoritative interpretation, much less been considered or discussed in any depth by the Supreme Court of Canada.

Universities have property rights. Are they entitled, as a consequence, to exclude others at will? Are property rights, especially those exercised by public institutions like universities, different from homeowners or shop owners?

In the last few months several groups in Canada have called on the federal government to enlarge the scope of the Criminal Code ban on speech that counsels others to engage in acts of terrorism to include an explicit prohibition on the “glorification of terrorism”. A ban on the glorification of terrorism might extend to speech that celebrates the murder of Israeli civilians by Hamas on October 7 or the 9-11 attacks in the United States.

Earlier this month the University of Windsor reached an agreement with the occupants of a pro-Palestinian encampment on the university’s grounds. The agreement brought a peaceful end to the protest. Several of the leading Jewish organizations in Canada have been harshly critical of the agreement. Their principal complaints (listed 1 to 5) are that: 

Some 50 days after protestors set up a camp known as Occupy U of T, Ontario Superior Court granted the University of Toronto an injunction that ordered occupants to dismantle the site and discontinue their demonstration.

In spring 2024 student encampments at Canadian and US universities provoked strong reactions for and against pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus property. While some Canadian universities called in police to disperse demonstrators, others looked to the courts for injunctions compelling students to disperse and abandon their encampments.