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

(See also Jeremy Webber “The Irreducibly Religious Content of Freedom of Religion” in AvigailEisenberg, ed., Diversity and Equality: The Changing Framework of Freedom in Canada (2006),178, at p. 184; Charles Taylor, Philosophical Arguments (1995), at 225.)[130] Moreover, it is important to recognize that freedom of religion has “both individual andcollective aspects” (Edwards Books, at p. 781, per Dickson C.J.). Wilson J., in her partial dissentin Edwards Books, confirmed this dual nature of freedom of religion when she said:In his commentary on the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms ProfessorTarnopolsky . . . points out that the Charter protects group rights as well as individualrights. He distinguishes between individual and group rights on the basis that theassertion of an individual right emphasises the proposition that everyone is to be treatedthe same regardless of his or her membership in a particular identifiable group whereasthe assertion of a group right is based on the claim of an individual or group ofindividuals because of membership in a particular identifiable group: see “The EqualityRights”, in The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms: Commentary (1982), at p.437.. . . it seems to me that when the Charter protects group rights such as freedom ofreligion, it protects the rights of all members of the group. It does not make fish of someand fowl of the others. For, quite apart from considerations of equality, to do so is tointroduce an invidious distinction into the group and sever the religious and cultural tiethat binds them together. It is, in my opinion, an interpretation of the Charter expresslyprecluded by s. 27 which requires the Charter to be interpreted “in a manner consistentwith the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians”. [pp.808-9]Both the individual and group aspects are engaged in this case.[131] The group, or “community”, aspect of religious freedom was discussed by the EuropeanCourt of Human Rights in Metropolitan Church of Bessarabia and Others v. Moldova, no.45701/99, ECHR 2001-XII: