On this day in ...... 1985 (25 years ago today), the Canada Supreme Court held that the governmental ban on Sunday shopping unconstitutionally infringed on the freedom of religion and conscience, guaranteed in Article 2(a) of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. (photo credit) In Regina v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd., Justice Robert George Brian Dickson wrote of the statute under review:
'To the extent that it binds all to a sectarian Christian ideal, the Lord's Day Act works a form of coercion inimical to the spirit of the Charter and the dignity of all non-Christians. It takes religious values rooted in Christian morality and, using the force of the state, translates them into a positive law binding on believers and non-believers alike.'
(Prior April 24 posts are here, here, and here)
