"Droit de Cité" - Where is our right to protest going? Documentary about free speech and protest
Channel: Patparazzi
Date: 18/11/2012

We have entered an era where political profiling, State's repression of protest movements, police brutality, abusive searches and arbitrary arrests are unfortunately become common occurrences.

When the Government uses laws to restrict the fundamental freedoms established in the Second article of Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and guaranteed by the Canadian Constitution and various international treaties, we are right to ask questions.

Since the articles of the Criminal Code and the municipal regulations framing demonstrations are written in broad and vague terms in relation to public order and public peace, there is a large discretionary power for police officers to repress demonstrations before they have even started and to intimidate participants that express their voice in a perfectly legitimate manner.

We are right to worry as these laws and regulations grant police officers no less than the power to define who, when, where and how the right to protest can be exercised.

As the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a quasi-constitutional law, in the sense that it is above all other laws, rights and freedoms should only be restricted by the application of the rule of law, within limits that are reasonable and can be justified in a free and democratic society.