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View cases - Stewart McKelvey

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equirements it finds to the case before it. It is not to simply promote, as much as possible,values that some subjectively think underpin the Charter in a general sense.[253] I agree with the words of Iacobucci J. in Bell ExpressVu Limited Partnership v. Rex,2002 SCC 42, [2002] 2 S.C.R. 559, at para. 62, where he wrote “to the extent this Court hasrecognized a ‘Charter values’ interpretive principle, such principle can only receive applicationin circumstances of genuine ambiguity, i.e., where a statutory provision is subject to differing,2011 SCC 20 (CanLII)but equally plausible, interpretations”. The Court cannot employ a Charter values argument tointerpret the Charter itself so broadly that the interpretation is no longer plausible. As Dickson J.observed, “it is important not to overshoot the actual purpose of the right or freedom in question”(Big M, at para. 117). This means, as Professor Hogg says, that even though this Court hasadopted a progressive, purposive approach to interpreting the Constitution, courts are notliberated from the “normal constraints of interpretation” (p. 15-50).[254] Section 2(d) protects the freedom to associate. It does not purport to guarantee the“collective goals” (reasons of the Chief Justice and LeBel J., at para. 46) of the association onceformed. The majority’s interpretation in Health Services is not plausible because it created afree-standing right to the objectives of employee associations; it created a right which “requiresboth employer and employees to meet and to bargain in good faith, in the pursuit of a commongoal of peaceful and productive accommodation” and make a “reasonable effort to arrive at anacceptable contract” (paras. 90 and 101). To suggest that s. 2(d) protects the right to equalbargaining power with one’s employer or “a form of workplace democracy” takes it far outsideits linguistic, philosophical and historical context.

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