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Been to the Introductory Course?
So you've been to the intro course and seen where the lines are drawn. What next? Verify. Check the resources cited: quotes, statutes, definitions, etc.. Confirm for yourself that they are valid. It's seeing it for yourself that will bring it home for you.
Check out the 'Links' page on this site and browse the sites that might be relevant to you. Become familiar with where to look when you need information. Learn to distinguish between provincial and federal statutes. Look up statutes that might be of use to you now, or may have been of use to you in the past, such as: the Workers Compensation Act or Motor Vehicle Act. Practice looking up local by-laws on line. Look up court cases on-line or visit a law library if you have time. To understand your rights is to understand yourself.
The references, and sources of the references, cited in the introduction to the Nature of Your Person course have been provided below. Use them to verify or refute the truth of what you have learned so far. The links to the left are there to help you navigate this page.
Law Books
"Law necessarily deals with the duties and rights of persons." –p. 105
-Sir Frederick Pollock, A First Book of Jurisprudence (New York: The MacMillan Co., 1896)
Court Summaries
"It is clear that the burthen lies on those who seek to establish that the legislature intended to take away the private rights of individuals, to show that by express words or necessary implication such an intention appears." -Metropolitan Asylum District v. Hill (1881), 6 App. Cas. 193 (H.L.) Lord Blackburn at p.208
- Metropolitan Cited in: Abell v. The Corporation of the County of York, 1920 SCC. 61 , 61 S.C.R. 345
- Abell Cited in: Parklane Private Hospital Ltd. v. British Columbia, [1975] 2 S.C.R. 47
- Metropolitan also cited in: Blueberry River Indian Band v. Canada ( Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development ), 1993 CanLii 2932 (F.C.A.), 3 F.C. 28, 100 D.L.R. (4th) 504, 61 F.T.R. 240.
"[...] express words are necessary before the courts will construe a private right as having been taken away."
- Blueberry River Indian Band v. Canada ( Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development ), 1993 CanLii 2932 (F.C.A.), [1993] 3 F.C. 28, (1993), 100 D.L.R. (4th) 504, (1993), 61 F.T.R. 240.
IRVING, J.: "... Among the normal rights which are available to every British subject against all the world are: (1) personal safety and freedom; (2) one's good name; (3) the enjoyment of the advantages ordinarily open to all the inhabitants of the country, e.g., the unmolested pursuit of one's trade or occupation and free use of the highways; (4) freedom from malicious vexation by legal process; and (5) to one's own property" […]
"[...] Where a restraint is sought to be put upon any person in respect of the exercise of any of those natural rights, I think it is the duty of the Court to assume that the legislature did not intend to interfere with them, unless clear and unequivocal words have been used."
- Rex v. Sung (Sang) Chong, 1909, 11 W.L.R 231, 14 B.C.R. 275 at 277 (C.A.)
- Sung Chong Cited in: Rex v. Kite, [1949] 2 W.W.R. 195
[68] [...] "In general, election is the doctrine that if a person has a choice of one of two rights, but not both, where he chooses one, he cannot afterwards assert the other […]"
[69] "His decision being a matter of choice for him, is called in law an election . . . In all cases, he has in the end to make his election, not as a matter of obligation, but in the sense that, if he does not do so, the time may come when the law takes the decision out of his hands, either by holding him to have elected not to exercise the right which has become available to him, or sometimes by holding him to have elected to exercise it."
[71] "[...] Laycraft J.A.'s review of the law in Harding v. Thomson, supra, show, election requires a choice to be made between two mutually exclusive rights available to a person. [...] Election is about choosing between alternative rights available to oneself."
-Blueberry River Indian Band v. Canada (Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development) (C.A.), 2001 FCA 67, 201 D.L.R. (4th) 35
[71] "Thus, the Canadian Bill of Rights retains all its force and effect, together with the various provincial charters of rights. Because these constitutional or quasi-constitutional instruments are drafted differently, they are susceptible of producing cumulative effects for the better protection of rights and freedoms. But this beneficial result will be lost if these instruments fall into neglect. It is particularly so where they contain provisions not to be found in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms [...]"
- Bear v. Canada (Attorney General) (T.D.), 2001 FCT 1192
Transcripts
THE COURT: "By the way, the Canadian Bill of rights has been superceded by the Charter of rights [...]
Basically the Bill of Rights is a dodo bird."
- R. v. Wilcox, June 19, 2006
Provincial Court of British Columbia (traffic court)
Statutes
"... the expression "person" or "male person", or any similar expression, shall include a female person, unless a different meaning is required by the context or by the terms of this Act."
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An Act to confer the Electoral Franchise upon Women, 8-9 GEORGE V. 1919, c. 20.
Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their Desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom:
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Constitution Act, 1867
1. It is hereby recognized and declared that in Canada there have existed and shall continue to exist without discrimination by reason of race, national origin, colour, religion or sex, the following human rights and fundamental freedoms, namely, (a) the right of the individual to life, liberty, security of the person and enjoyment of property, and the right not to be deprived thereof except by due process of law;
2. Every law of Canada shall, unless it is expressly declared by an Act of the Parliament of Canada that it shall operate notwithstanding the Canadian Bill of Rights, be so construed and applied as not to abrogate, abridge or infringe or to authorize the abrogation, abridgment or infringement of any of the rights or freedoms herein recognized and declared,
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Canadian Bill of Rights, R.S.C. 1960, c. 44
26.The guarantee in this Charter of certain rights and freedoms shall not be construed as denying the existence of any other rights or freedoms that exist in Canada.
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The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, 1982
AND WHEREAS the Governor in Council, in taking such special temporary measures, would be subject to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the Canadian Bill of Rights and must have regard to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, particularly with respect to those fundamental rights that are not to be limited or abridged even in a national emergency;
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Emergencies Act, 1985, c. 22 (4th Supp.)
33. (1) Words importing female persons include male persons and corporations and words importing male persons include female persons and corporations.
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Interpretation Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. I-21
Definitions
NOTE: many of these definitions are excerpts and are incomplete. For the complete definitions go to the actual source named or similar if the actual source is unavailable.
abridge: curtail.
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The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 9th Ed., s.v. "abridge".
abrogate: repeal, annul, or abolish.
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The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 9th Ed., s.v. "abrogate".
codification: An uncodified constitution is one that is not contained in a single document, consisting of several different sources, which may be written or unwritten.
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online: Wikipedia www.wikipedia.org
express 1 a: directly, firmly, and explicitly stated <my express orders> b: EXACT, PRECISE
- online: Merriam-Webster Online www.merriam-webster.com s.v. "express"
For the word "person", a wider spectrum of definitions, from different time periods and different dictionaries, has been furnished in order to provide a broader context within which one may begin to understand how this term is used.
"person" – standard definitions:
PERSON n. 2. A living human being; a man, woman, or child.
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Webster's Academic Dictionary-Illustrated, 1867, s.v. "person"
person 1 an individual human being. 2 the living body of a human being.
- The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 9th Ed., s.v. "person"
"person" – legal definitions:
person 2. law. Any human being, corporation, or body politic having legal rights and duties.
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Funk & Wagnalls; The Students' Standard Dictionary, 1910, s.v. "person"
person A man considered according to the rank he holds in society, with all the right to which the place he holds entitles him, and the duties which it imposes[...] A person is such, not because he is human, but because rights and duties are ascribed to him. The person is the legal subject or substance of which the rights and duties are attributes. An individual human being considered as having such attributes is what lawyers call a natural person."
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Black's Law Dictionary, 4th ed., s.v. "person"
"person"...[A]ny being that is capable of having rights and duties, and is confined to that. Persons are of two classes only – natural persons and legal persons. A natural person is a human being that has the capacity for rights or duties. A legal person is anything to which the law gives a legal or fictional existence or personality, with capacity for rights or duties.
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Carswell's Dictionary of Canadian Law, 2nd ed., s.v. "person"
STATUTE, n. An act of the legislature declaring, commanding, or prohibiting something[...] The written will of the legislature.
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Black's Law Dictionary, 4th Ed., s.v. "statute"
Dictionaries Referenced
- Webster's Academic Dictionary - Illustrated, 1867
- Funk & Wagnalls; The Students' Standard Dictionary, 1910
- Black's Law Dictionary, 4th ed, 1968
- Carswell's Dictionary of Canadian Law, 2nd ed., 1995
- The Concise Oxford Dictionary, 9th Edition, 1995
- Merriam-Webster OnLine Dictionary