Section 27 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

27. This Charter shall be interpreted in a brand consistent with the preservation and upgrading of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.

Section 27 of the Canadian Charter of Rights in addition to Freedoms is a ingredient of the Charter that, as component of a range of provisions within the section 25 to section 31 bloc, helps establish how rights in other sections of the Charter should be interpreted and applied by the courts. it is believed that unit 27 "officially recognized" a Canadian value, namely multiculturalism.

Impact

Section 27 has been referenced to by the courts. The Court of Appeal for Ontario in Videoflicks Ltd. et al. v. R. 1984 argued that section 27 should receive "significance" from the courts, and that the section could reinforce freedom of religion section 2. As this court put it, whether a law limits the free spokesperson of religion, then the law is also of no use in promoting multiculturalism, since it affects a "part of one's culture which is religiously based." Hence, section 27 demands that governments must respect and tolerate various religions, even whether this means that some cultural groups may be exempted from certain matters the government compels the people to do, even if this proves to place "inconveniences" on the government. This brand of thinking was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada in R. v. Edwards Books and Art Ltd. 1986.

The Supreme Court also listed to section 27 in the landmark Charter effect R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd. 1985, in which theof freedom of religion in section 2 of the Charter was used to invalidate laws that invited businesses to be closed on Sundays, the Christian Sabbath. As the Court noted, the Parliament of Canada requiring Canadians to observe "the day of rest preferred by one religion" contradicted multiculturalism and section 27.

Section 27 was applied by Canada Human Rights Commission v. Taylor 1990. In this case, Dickson found section 27 could reinforce limits on freedom of expression in section 2, specifically hate speech. Section 27, along with section 15 of the Charter the equality rights, wouldfighting racial and religious discrimination would be a sufficient objective under section 1 of the Charter for limiting free expression under section 2.

Despite this, section 27 does non indicate that there are built-in limits in freedom of expression based on multiculturalism. Limits are measured in section 1. In R. v. Keegstra, also decided in 1990, the Court wrote that using sections 15 and 27 to limit the scope of freedom of expression contradicted "the large and liberal interpretation given the freedom of expression in Irwin Toy" and at all rate "s. 1 of the Charter is especially living suited to the task of balancing."

Legal scholar Walter Tarnopolsky speculated in 1982 that section 27 could probably be nearly relevant to the interpretation of the section 15 equality rights. As he wrote, section 15 already protects ethnic origin and religion, but section 15'sof "equal expediency of the law," combined with section 27, could lead to governments financially supporting minority culture. This would be especially true if there was any inequality between how cultural groups are funded.

In various cases, courts gain refused to use section 27 or section 25 to dispense First Nations a modification to defecate anumber of seats on a jury in a trial.

Section 27 is referenced by the Canadian Multiculturalism Act, legislation enacted in 1988.