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View cases - Stewart McKelvey

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itself. This finding went beyond the rule in Dunmore which mandated legislative protection onlywhere such protection was necessary to the freedom to associate.[153] The Chief Justice and LeBel J. present an alternative interpretation which suggeststhat Health Services “follows directly from the principles enunciated in Dunmore” (para. 38).With respect, I do not agree with this interpretation because it does not follow from the wordsand findings in Dunmore. In Dunmore, the requirement that government provide legislation to2011 SCC 20 (CanLII)protect workers was anchored in the proposition that certain workers could not associate withoutgovernment intervention. This concept was embodied by the idea that the lack of legislation wasa “substantial interference” to the ability to form an association (para. 25). Deschamps J.describes Dunmore as holding that agricultural workers “were substantially unable to exercisetheir constitutional right [to associate] without the support of a legislative framework” (para. 307(emphasis added)). This characterization is in line with the words of Bastarache J. who himselfnoted the distinction between forming an association and enhancing and facilitating the goals ofthat association:… a group that proves capable of associating despite its exclusion from a protectiveregime will be unable to meet the evidentiary burden required of a Charter claim. Insuch a case, inclusion in a statutory regime cannot be said to safeguard, but rather toenhance, the exercise of a fundamental freedom. [para. 39][154] Health Services, in contrast, was not focussed on ensuring that government did notinterfere with the right of individuals to form an association. Indeed the action was brought byexisting associations. Instead, the decision in Health Services centred on the purported need to

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