12/28/2023 0 Comments Jehovas witness![]() The Bill of Rights was ultimately ineffective in practice. It was the first Canadian statute to prohibit sex discrimination, although unlike race, religion, and national origin, sex discrimination was only banned in employment. Also, the Bill of Rights defined rights largely in the same terms as other antidiscrimination laws in Canada, with the sole exception that it banned discrimination on the basis of sex (alongside race, religion, and national origin). It was passed simply as a federal statute. His opponents, however, citing the principle of Parliamentary supremacy, undermined any attempt to amend the constitution. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s original vision had been for a constitutionally entrenched bill of rights. ![]() The 1960 federal Bill of Rights was another landmark piece of rights legislation. And Duplessis was fined $8,000 in Roncarelli v. Elbling (1957) the Court struck down the Padlock Act as ultra vires the province’s jurisdiction because it functioned as criminal law. Fortunately for Saumur, the collective result was to rule that the arrest was illegal. City of Quebec and Attorney-General (1953) was a confusing mix of contradictory judicial findings: the justices were divided over whether the case constituted a violation of freedom of religion and whether the power to legislate on civil liberties was provincial or federal (one justice decided that the ordinance violated the Freedom to Worship Act). The accused also had to be guilty of inciting violence against the state. In putting aside the guilty verdict, it concluded that an individual was not guilty of sedition for simply fomenting ill will or hostility. In Boucher v the King (1949), the Court narrowed the definition of sedition. The Supreme Court of Canada sided with the defendants in each case. The case ignited what one historian described as “the most extensive campaign of state-sponsored religious persecution ever undertaken in Canada.” Jehovah’s Witnesses were dragged from their homes at night and arrested, police stood by as violent mobs attacked them, hundreds were imprisoned, prayer meetings were raided, and their literature was burned on the streets. Roncarelli sued the premier for $100,000. Speaking to a reporter from the Montreal Gazette, Duplessis explained that “the communists, Nazis as well as those who are the propagandists for the Witnesses of Jehovah, have been treated and will continue to be treated by the Union Nationale government as they deserve for trying to infiltrate themselves and their seditious ideas in the Province of Quebec.” When Roncarelli refused to stop, Duplessis used his influence to have the restaurant owner’s licence revoked, and the restaurant soon went bankrupt. Duplessis was outraged and publicly admonished Roncarelli about posting bail. ![]() Meanwhile, Frank Roncarelli, the owner of Quaff Café in Montreal, was busy providing hundreds of jailed Jehovah’s Witnesses with bail in defiance of Duplessis’s campaign against the unpopular sect. In another case, Laurier Saumur was arrested under a municipal ordinance in Quebec City that prohibited the distribution of any book, pamphlet, circular, or tract without permission of the chief of police (with no procedure for appealing the decision). ![]() Elbling sued Switzman for loss of rent, and Switzman used the opportunity to challenge the law’s constitutionality. In a direct reversal of legal tradition, the accused was assumed guilty and had the burden of proving his or her innocence. Duplessis’s Padlock Act permitted the police to close buildings without warrant, charge, or trial for promoting communism. It was not long before the police raided and barricaded the apartment. Two years later, John Switzman, a prominent Marxist in Montreal, rented an apartment from Freda Elbling. Boucher decided to challenge the government’s definition of sedition in court. | Copyright Dominique Clément / Clément ConsultingĪimé Boucher, a farmer in St-Germain Parish and a Jehovah’s Witness, was arrested for sedition in 1946 because he had distributed copies of a flyer titled “Quebec’s Burning Hate.” Sedition was a common charge used to harass Jehovah’s Witnesses.
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