What right does the Charter protect regarding mobility within Canada?

Section 6 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects mobility rights for Canadian citizens and permanent residents. Section 6(1) gives every citizen of Canada the right to enter, remain in, and leave Canada. Section 6(2) gives every citizen and every person who has the status of a permanent resident the right to move to and take up residence in any province and to pursue the gaining of a livelihood in any province.

Section 6(3) limits the mobility right by allowing laws or practices of general application in force in a province, other than those that discriminate among persons primarily on the basis of province of present or previous residence, and by allowing reasonable residency requirements for receipt of publicly provided social services. Section 6(4) preserves provincial affirmative-action programmes for residents of provinces with employment rates below the national average. The leading case interpreting section 6 is Black v. Law Society of Alberta (1989), where the Supreme Court of Canada struck down restrictions on out-of-province lawyers practising in Alberta.

Mobility rights matter because Canada is a federation in which education, healthcare, professional licensing, and most labour-market regulation are provincial responsibilities. The Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CFTA), which took effect July 1, 2017 replacing the Agreement on Internal Trade of 1994, builds on section 6 by harmonising rules across provinces and by establishing a Regulatory Reconciliation and Cooperation Table to reduce non-tariff barriers. Labour mobility for over 200 regulated professions is protected through the CFTA and bilateral agreements.

Mobility rights are not absolute. Section 6 does not protect non-citizens or non-permanent-residents. The right to enter Canada under section 6(1) may be limited by extradition law, the Customs Act, and pandemic-era public-health measures (such as the federal travel restrictions of 2020 to 2022, which were challenged but not struck down). Citizenship-revocation procedures under the Citizenship Act remain controversial and have been narrowed by the Strengthening Canadian Citizenship Act of 2014 and Bill C-6 of 2017.