PM Mark Carney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\nBy Anthony Murdoch<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(LifeSiteNews) \u2014 One of Canada\u2019s top constitutional freedom groups is gearing up for a legal fight against the Canadian federal government for what it said was an intrusive census that \u201cforced\u201d people to \u201cdisclose\u201d to authorities their personal \u201creligious\u201d beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat should you have to tell the government?\u201d the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) said in a recent email to LifeSiteNews and supporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cShould you be forced to disclose to the government your commuting habits, mental health conditions, or religious beliefs? That is exactly what the 2026 long-form census requires.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Canada\u2019s most recent census was mailed to Canadians in May. About 25 percent of census recipients were sent what is known as a \u201clong-form\u201d census that asked questions such as \u201cWhat is your gender (defined as your \u2018personal and social identity\u2019 as a man, woman, non-binary, agender, gender fluid, queer or Two-Spirit)?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The census also asked people\u2019s religion, if they had any mental health or emotional or psychological issues, their rent or mortgage payment, and \u201cWhat was your sex at birth?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many Canadians who refused to answer the census faced fines of $500 as well as in-person visits from officials asking why the census was not completed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The JCCF said that due to the census\u2019 intrusive nature it heard from \u201chundreds\u201d of Canadians \u201cexpressing their opposition to this violation of their privacy and security.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNo government has the right to this kind of information. That\u2019s why we are asking the Federal Court to strike down the long-form census as unconstitutional,\u201d the JCCF said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The JCCF noted that in June it had filed an application for judicial review on behalf of Bradley and Linda Osborne of Foothills County, Alberta. The JCCF asked the federal court to \u201crule that portions of the long-form census are unjustified violations of our Charter rights and freedoms.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The JCCF said its lawyers are arguing that forcing Canadians to disclose \u201cdeeply personal information violates their right to life, liberty, and security of the person (Charter section 7) and their right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure (Charter section 8).\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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\u201cThe Supreme Court of Canada has stated that \u2018respect for individual privacy is an essential component of what it means to be free\u2019 and that \u2018the infringement of this right undeniably impinges upon an individual\u2019s \u2018liberty\u2019 in our free and democratic society.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The JCCF acknowledged that a census is a valid and important tool for governments, it should not be used to \u201cpeer into the private lives of citizens.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur lawyers argue that the government acted beyond its authority by forcing Canadians to answer far more questions than necessary,\u201d the JCCF said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Liberal federal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney has in recent months introduced<\/u><\/a> multiple laws and past several that impact Canadians\u2019 freedoms online and regarding religious speech.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You have to love the part about not answering these intrusive questions getting census workers to show up on your door, with the possibility of fines. But in case you think this is just Canada, the US has a legal requirement for you to fill them out as well, with fines for not filling out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18089"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18092,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18089\/revisions\/18092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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