What is the right to peaceful protest in Canada?

The right to peaceful protest in Canada is protected by the combined operation of three sections of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: section 2(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, section 2(c) freedom of peaceful assembly, and section 2(d) freedom of association. Together these protect the right to gather publicly with others to advocate for political, social, religious, economic, or cultural causes. The Supreme Court of Canada has read all three section 2 freedoms together when protest cases arise.

Peaceful protest is an essential feature of Canadian democratic life and has shaped Canadian history. The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, the On-to-Ottawa Trek of 1935, the women's-rights demonstrations of the 1960s and 1970s, the Oka Crisis of 1990, the 2010 G20 protests in Toronto, the Idle No More movement of 2012 to 2013, the 2020 Black Lives Matter rallies, and the Wet'suwet'en pipeline protests of 2020 and beyond have all tested the constitutional limits and political reach of public demonstration. Universities, parliamentary lawns, city halls, and downtown streets are common protest venues.

The right is subject to reasonable limits. Police may impose time, place, and manner restrictions for public-safety reasons under municipal bylaws and the Criminal Code, provided the restrictions meet the section 1 Oakes test. The Criminal Code defines unlawful assembly (section 63) as three or more persons gathered with a common purpose to disturb the peace, riot (section 64) as a tumultuous unlawful assembly, and offences such as mischief (sections 430 to 434), intimidation (section 423), and blocking transportation infrastructure. Anti-protest injunctions, particularly in resource-extraction disputes such as Coastal GasLink, the Trans Mountain Expansion, and Fairy Creek old-growth logging, have generated extensive Charter litigation.

The Truckers' Convoy (Freedom Convoy) of January and February 2022 occupied parts of downtown Ottawa for three weeks and blockaded several Canada-United States border crossings, prompting the federal government's first invocation of the Emergencies Act since the statute replaced the War Measures Act in 1988. The Public Order Emergency was declared on February 14, 2022 and revoked on February 23, 2022. The Federal Court of Canada in Canadian Civil Liberties Association v. Canada (Attorney General) (2024) held that the invocation did not meet the statutory threshold and infringed sections 2(b) and 2(c) of the Charter not justified under section 1; the case is on appeal. The Rouleau Commission (Public Order Emergency Commission) reported in February 2023 with detailed findings on protest policing.