The Rule of the Courts

M. Akram Faizer

to the Court, workers have the freedom to form unions, present demands to government employers collectively and engage in discussions to achieve workplace-related goals. 165 The Court followed this up by concluding that provincial laws prohibiting essential public sector workers from going on strike undermined the collective bargaining process and therefore violated the Charter’s protections for freedom of association. 166 In short, the Court concluded that freedom of association protected the right to go on strike. 167 While the U.S. has a longstanding tradition of denying voting rights to incarcerated persons and convicted felons, Canada has historically taken a more liberal approach and its Elections Act allows convicts to vote and purported to only deny the franchise to prisoners serving sentences of two more years. 168 The Supreme Court of Canada went further and concluded that all Canadian citizens, including prisoners, have a right to vote based on the Charter § 15(1)’s guarantee of equal protection. 169 The Court then built upon this voting rights jurisprudence to conclude that provisions of the Canada Elections Act that disallow Canadian citizens residing abroad from voting violate the Charter § 3, which guarantees all Canadian citizens the right to vote in federal and provincial elections. 170 The Court concluded that Charter § 3 was violated because citizenship, not residence, defines Canada’s political community and underlies the right to vote. 171 After the U.S. Supreme Court, in Coker v. Georgia (1972) put a temporary pause on the death penalty on cruel and unusual punishment grounds, it reversed course and reauthorized the death penalty in Gregg v. Georgia , Proffitt v. Florida , Jurek v. Texas , Woodson v. North Carolina , and Roberts v. Louisiana (1976) such that typically 3,000 individuals in

2007 SCC 27 165 Id. 166 Saskatchewan Federation of Labour v. Saskatchewan, 2015 SCC 4 167 Id. 168 Canada Elections Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. E-2, s. 51(e). 169 Sauvé v. Canada (Chief Electoral Officer), 2002 SCC 68 170 Frank v. Canada (Attorney General), 2019 SCC 1 171 Id.

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