page_title: Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
section_title: Freedom of peaceful assembly
hierarchical_section_title: Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms / Freedom of peaceful assembly
caption_attribution_description: English: Occupy Montreal on Saturday, October 15, a Global Day of Action for the Occupy Together movement. Over 1,000 people convened at Victoria Square to take part in the peaceful democratic expression.
context_page_description: Section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the section of the Constitution of Canada that lists what the Charter calls "fundamental freedoms" theoretically applying to everyone in Canada, regardless of whether they are a Canadian citizen, or an individual or corporation. These freedoms can be held against actions of all levels of government and are enforceable by the courts. The fundamental freedoms are freedom of expression, freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of belief, freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of association.
  Section 1 of the Charter permits Parliament or the provincial legislatures to enact laws that place certain kinds of limited restrictions on the freedoms listed under section 2. Additionally, these freedoms can be temporarily invalidated by section 33, the "notwithstanding clause", of the Charter.
  As a part of the Charter and of the larger Constitution Act, 1982, section 2 took legal effect on April 17, 1982. However, many of its rights have roots in Canada in the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights, and in traditions under a theorized Implied Bill of Rights.
context_section_description: Freedom of peaceful assembly under section 2(c) has not had a major impact on the case law.  In Reference Re Public Service Employee Relations Act (Alta), the Supreme Court found that despite being written as a separate right, it was closely related to freedom of expression. The Nova Scotia Supreme Court defined it in Fraser et al v AGNS et al (1986) as including rights to meet as part of a committee or as workers. If there are membership fees to attend a meeting, prohibitions on being able to spend money for membership would be an abridgement of the right to peaceful assembly. In 2011, Occupy Canada's protests in public parks raised questions of whether their eviction was prohibited by freedom of assembly, as well as expression and association.
caption: Occupy Canada stages a peaceful assembly in Victoria Square in Montreal.
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