What are mobility rights?

Mobility rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms are guaranteed by section 6, which protects the right to enter, remain in, and leave Canada (for citizens) and the right to move and take up residence in any province and to pursue the gaining of a livelihood in any province (for citizens and permanent residents). Section 6 is one of the few Charter rights immune to override under section 33's notwithstanding clause.

The leading section 6 case is Canadian Egg Marketing Agency v. Richardson (1998), in which the Supreme Court of Canada held that the supply-management system for eggs did not unjustifiably burden the right to gain a livelihood across provinces. Black v. Law Society of Alberta (1989) struck down restrictions on out-of-province lawyers working in Alberta. Reference re Securities Act (2011) addressed the constitutional limits on federal regulation of an interprovincial securities market. Together these cases shape the constitutional limits on provincial barriers to interprovincial commerce.

Section 6 is supported by the Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), which took effect on July 1, 2017 and replaced the 1994 Agreement on Internal Trade. The CFTA covers labour mobility, government procurement, investment, and regulatory cooperation. The Regulatory Reconciliation and Cooperation Table works to remove non-tariff barriers between provinces. About 200 regulated occupations are covered by labour-mobility provisions allowing certified workers in one province to practise in another without retraining.

Mobility rights are not absolute. Section 6(3) permits laws of general application that do not discriminate primarily on the basis of province of residence, reasonable residency requirements for publicly provided social services, and section 6(4) preserves provincial affirmative-action programmes for residents in less prosperous provinces. The federal government's pandemic-era restrictions on interprovincial travel and mandatory quarantine in 2020 to 2022 were challenged as section 6 violations but were upheld as section 1 justified limits in cases including Spencer v. Canada (Attorney General) (2021).