Danielle S. McLaughlin
Director of Education & Administration
Canadian Civil Liberties Education Trust
Fall 2007
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as you may know, starts out in Section One by telling you that every single one of the rights and freedoms that you have mentioned and the others we haven't yet got to will be subject to reasonable limits and demonstrably justifiable in a free and democratic society. Can anybody give me an opinion on what reasonable means? How do you know?
That it's not hurting others okay. That might be one place in which we say that a limit could, could be reasonable. Anybody here ever argue with another person on whether something was reasonable or not? Anybody here have a mother? I guarantee you that if you do, you have had, you know, and especially if you are having to live with your mother probably in the last few hours, an argument about whether something is reasonable or not. Right? Reasonable. We really are going to argue. Hurt. That's kind of interesting. Imagine the class in which you've been last placed. Imagine the students. What, whatever age they are. I understand you're all PJ people so they're, they're young. Imagine yourself asking them, "what does freedom mean?" What do you think they'd say? What does freedom mean? What would they say to you? Yeah?
Student: We get to do whatever we want to.
Danielle: Pretty much eh? That's usually what I hear when I ask that question. You know what I do when I hear that? I go like this (flapping arms). I want to do this. Is that okay with you? You look like an idiot but knock yourself out. Are you okay with my flapping? You okay? I know it looks very, very silly, but you're pretty good on this. There's nobody who says "just cause you look like a fool you should stop", although you might be thinking that, but never mind. But you'll notice here that I'm moving. How you doing?
Student: Great.
Danielle: You still okay with my flapping?
Student: Oh well you know.
Danielle: Not so much right?
Student: It's a little distracting.
Danielle: It's a little distracting. Do you want me to stop?
Student: Um, if it's reasonable.
Danielle: Ah. Is it?
Danielle: Is it reasonable?
Student: Sure.
Danielle: Sure it is. Okay. Now I'm going to ask the very first question that you need to ask to figure out whether it's reasonable. Why? What do you want me to stop for? What's the purpose of your limiting my freedom? Why do you want to do that?
Student: Because it was bothering me.
Danielle: It was bothering you. I certainly was in your space. What else would you be concerned about?
Student: My safety?
Danielle: Your safety. I'm going to go back to what you just said. I could hurt you. I didn't want to. I didn't get that close fortunately, but your reason to limit my freedom is your safety, and very frequently our legislators, our ruler makers come up with this as the reason. Safety. People don't argue about safety. You know, they don't often say, "O safety that's terrible. We don't want any of that in our classroom," right? People don't say that. Safety looks pretty good to most people, but that's not enough. Just because you've come up with a good purpose to limit a right or a freedom doesn't mean that it's fair. We have 2 more questions to ask. The second question we ask is, does it work? Any rule or law that has a good purpose but couldn't possibly achieve it isn't going to be fair, and far more important the third question, the most important: what else does it do? What are some of the other affects of your rule or law? Because there isn't a rule or a law that has simply one effect.
