PEN Canada successfully intervenes in "gas stickers" challenge
TORONTO, Sept. 10, 2020 /CNW/ - PEN Canada has successfully intervened in the Canadian Civil Liberties Association's (CCLA) constitutional challenge to the Ontario government's "gas stickers" law. The CCLA sued the province in 2019 alleging that its Federal Carbon Tax Transparency Act (the Act) violated the freedom of expression guarantee in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The Act required gas station proprietors to affix to each gas pump a sticker that outlined the projected costs of federal legislation – the so-called "carbon tax" – and imposed fines for non-compliance.
The CCLA, supported by PEN Canada, argued that the Act compelled political expression.
Justice Morgan of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice agreed. He held that the legislation "create[s] not so much consumer messages but political missives …The message is that the incumbent party in Ontario has better policy ideas than the incumbent party in Ottawa. That is a perfectly acceptable message in a political campaign, but it is not the one that the government has purported to enact." He concluded that the provisions of the Act which required gasoline retailers to affix the stockers to gas pumps were unconstitutional.
"PEN Canada welcomes Justice Morgan's conclusion that speech compelled by the 'gas stickers' program is a violation of freedom of expression," said Brendan de Caires, Executive Director, PEN Canada. "Our intervention helped clarify how Canadian law recognizes freedom of expression in this context and set out relevant international legal principles for the Court's consideration. No government should be allowed to coerce participation in its political messaging."
PEN Canada was represented pro bono by Peter Wardle and Evan Rankin of Singleton Urquhart Reynolds Vogel LLP.
About PEN Canada
PEN Canada is a nonpartisan organization of writers that works with others to defend freedom of expression as a basic human right, at home and abroad. PEN Canada promotes literature, fights censorship, helps free persecuted writers from prison, and assists writers living in exile in Canada.
SOURCE PEN Canada
Brendan de Caires, [email protected]
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