How does Section 1 of the Charter affect individual rights?

Section 1 shapes individual rights in practice by allowing Parliament and provincial legislatures to impose 'reasonable limits' on most Charter rights so long as those limits can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. In daily life this means that almost every Charter right is subject to some form of legislative restriction, and that nearly all Charter litigation centres on whether a particular limit is justified rather than on whether the right exists. Without section 1, large parts of Canadian criminal, regulatory, and public-health law would be constitutionally vulnerable.

Several familiar restrictions on Canadian life rest on section 1. Impaired driving offences under sections 320 and following of the Criminal Code limit section 7 (life, liberty, and security) but are upheld as proportionate to the objective of road safety. Mandatory minimum penalties for serious offences limit section 12 (cruel and unusual punishment) and have been struck down or upheld depending on the offence. Criminal Code provisions on hate propaganda (section 319) limit section 2(b) freedom of expression but were upheld in R. v. Keegstra (1990). Pandemic-era limits on assembly during 2020 to 2022 were section 2(c) limits widely accepted as section 1 justified.

The Supreme Court applies a structured analysis. R. v. Oakes (1986), authored by Chief Justice Brian Dickson, asks whether the law's objective is pressing and substantial and whether the means are proportionate (rationally connected, minimally impairing, and net-positive in effects). Where a court finds the law fails any prong, the right prevails. Carter v. Canada (Attorney General) (2015) struck down the Criminal Code's blanket prohibition on physician-assisted death because the law was not minimally impairing of section 7. R. v. Morgentaler (1988) struck down the criminalisation of abortion on similar grounds.

What this means for ordinary Canadians is that no Charter right is absolute and that most rights claims will be answered with a section 1 analysis. A person stopped at a roadside check, told to wear a seat belt, prohibited from specific kinds of advertising, or limited in election spending is experiencing a section 1 limit on a Charter right. Section 1 is also what courts use to balance Charter rights against competing public objectives, and it is the principal reason why the Charter has been workable in a complex society. Section 28 (gender equality) is the one Charter right not subject to section 1 limitation.