What does Section 4 of the Charter limit?

Section 4 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms limits the maximum duration of any House of Commons or provincial or territorial legislative assembly to five years from the date of the most recent general election. Section 4(1) reads: 'No House of Commons and no legislative assembly shall continue for longer than five years from the date fixed for the return of the writs at a general election of its members'. Section 4(2) allows extension beyond five years 'in time of real or apprehended war, invasion or insurrection' if continuation is not opposed by more than one-third of the members of the chamber.

Section 4 is one of the few Charter rights immune from override under section 33's notwithstanding clause. Together with section 3 (the right to vote and stand for election) and section 5 (the requirement of an annual sitting of Parliament and each legislature), section 4 forms the core of Canadian democratic rights. The five-year limit prevents any government from indefinitely postponing an election and ensures regular accountability through the ballot box.

Federal fixed-election-date legislation supplements section 4 without displacing it. The Canada Elections Act, amended by Bill C-16 in 2007, provides that general elections normally take place on the third Monday of October every four years, beginning October 19, 2009. The fixed-date provision does not constrain the prime minister's ability to advise the Governor General to dissolve Parliament earlier, as the Federal Court confirmed in Conacher v. Canada (2009). Provincial fixed-election-date statutes operate similarly in British Columbia (since 2001), Ontario (since 2005), Quebec (since 2013), and elsewhere.

Section 4(2)'s wartime extension provision has never been used at the federal level since the Charter took effect in 1982. Its predecessor in the British North America Act, 1867 was used during the First World War, when the federal Parliament extended the term of the 1911 Parliament by amending the BNA Act. Section 5 of the Charter, requiring annual sittings of Parliament and legislatures, sets the minimum frequency of legislative business. Modern Parliaments and legislatures sit far more often than once a year, but the constitutional minimum was last debated during the COVID-19 prorogation in August 2020.