What Oakes Could Have Said (or How Else to Read a Limitations Clause)

The Centre for Constitutional Studies is excited to co-sponsor an in-person talk by Professor Gregoire Webber (Queens Law) at the University of Alberta Law Centre. The topic of his talk will be What Oakes Could Have Said (or How Else to Read a Limitations Clause). He will present an argument for rethinking how we approach section 1 of the Charter. In the case of R v Oakes, section 1 was understood to authorize justified infringements of the very rights and freedoms that the Charter guarantees. Emerging from the case is a conception of the human person that is opposed to others in community. By exploring the relationship between rights, their limitations, and the human person’s relationship to others in community, Prof. Webber will explore what the Court could have said in Oakes. In doing so, he will draw upon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the idea that it is only in community that human persons may fully exercise their rights.

Prof. Malcolm Lavoie will introduce Prof. Webber and moderate the discussion.

Lunch will be served.