View cases - Stewart McKelvey

support discredited the organizing efforts of agricultural workers and had a chilling effect ontheir constitutional right to associate. He concluded that farm workers in Ontario weresubstantially incapable of exercising their fundamental freedom to associate without a protectiveregime (para. 35). Quoting L’Heureux-Dubé J. in Delisle, Bastarache J. affirmed thatthe right to freedom of association must take into account the nature and importanceof labour associations as institutions that work for the betterment of workingconditions and the protection of the dignity and collective interests of workers in afundamental aspect of their lives: employment. [Emphasis deleted; para. 37.]2011 SCC 20 (CanLII)[32] After Dunmore, there could be no doubt that the right to associate to achieveworkplace goals in a meaningful and substantive sense is protected by the guarantee of freedomof association, and that this right extends to realization of collective, as distinct from individual,goals. Nor could there be any doubt that legislation (or the absence of a legislative framework)that makes achievement of this collective goal substantially impossible, constitutes a limit on theexercise of freedom of association. Finally, there could be no doubt that the guarantee must beinterpreted generously and purposively, in accordance with Canadian values and Canada’sinternational commitments.[33] It is worth pausing at this juncture to summarize the propositions that led themajority of the Court in Dunmore to these conclusions.! Section 2(d), interpreted purposively, guarantees freedom of associational activityin the pursuit of individual and common goals.