SUPREME COURT OF CANADA CITATION: Alberta v. Hutterian ...

more important to some adherents than to others.[90] Because religion touches so many facets of daily life, and because a host of differentreligions with different rites and practices co-exist in our society, it is inevitable that some religiouspractices will come into conflict with laws and regulatory systems of general application. Asrecognized by the European Court of Human Rights in Kokkinakis v. Greece, judgment of 25 May1993, Series A no. 260-A, cited by my colleague Abella J., this pluralistic context also includes“atheists, agnostics, sceptics and the unconcerned” (para. 31). Their interests are equally protectedby s. 2(a): R. v. Big M Drug Mart Ltd., [1985] 1 S.C.R. 295, at p. 347. In judging the seriousnessof the limit in a particular case, the perspective of the religious or conscientious claimant isimportant. However, this perspective must be considered in the context of a multicultural, multireligioussociety where the duty of state authorities to legislate for the general good inevitablyproduces conflicts with individual beliefs. The bare assertion by a claimant that a particular limitcurtails his or her religious practice does not, without more, establish the seriousness of the limit forpurposes of the proportionality analysis. Indeed to end the inquiry with such an assertion would castan impossibly high burden of justification on the state. We must go further and evaluate the degreeto which the limit actually impacts on the adherent.[91] The seriousness of a particular limit must be judged on a case-by-case basis. However,guidance can be found in the jurisprudence. Limits that amount to state compulsion on matters ofbelief are always very serious. As the U.S. Supreme Court has stated: “At the heart of liberty is theright to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery ofhuman life. Beliefs about these matters could not define the attributes of personhood were they