Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford, 2012 ONCA ... - York University

Page: 40respondents‟ s. 7 liberty interests: see Malmo-Levine, at para. 84. 5Some of theinterveners, however, advance a broader liberty claim.They submit that aperson‟s decision to engage in prostitution involves personal life choices that arealso protected under the right to liberty. We do not accept this submission.[93] The case law recognizes that the right to liberty extends beyond physicalliberty to the right to make individual choices that go to the core of personalautonomy. At some point, this concept of liberty must meld with the concept ofsecurity of the person, which also rests on the principle of personal autonomy.[94] To this stage in the development of the jurisprudence, the right to liberty asmanifested in the right to make personal decisions free from state interferencehas been limited to decisions that “go to the heart of an individual‟s privateexistence”: R. v. Clay, 2003 SCC 75, [2003] 3 S.C.R. 735, at paras. 31-32. Thedecision to engage in a particular commercial activity is not akin to the kinds ofdecisions that have been characterized as so fundamentally and inherentlypersonal and private as to fall under the right to liberty.To accept theinterveners‟ submission would be to read into s. 7 a constitutional protection forwhat are economic or commercial decisions. That reading would be inconsistentwith the deliberate decision to exclude property-related rights from the ambit ofs. 7: see Constitutional Law of Canada, at para. 47.7(b). As stated by Major J. in5 The appellants conceded that the liberty interest of all three respondents is engaged in respect of all thechallenged provisions. We accept that concession, although we observe that Ms. Lebovitch and Ms.Scott could not be prosecuted under the living on the avails provision based on the information in theiraffidavits.