Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

Allen v Alberta was a legal challenge to the Government of Alberta's monopoly on health insurance within the province (as it applies to seeking out-of-province treatment) by Darcy Allen, who had elected to pay $77,000 to undergo surgery for his chronic back pain in Montana rather than wait for treatment in Alberta.[9] The case closely mirrored the 2005 case of Chaoulli v Quebec (AG) where the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a government monopoly on health insurance, when combined with extremely long wait lists before care could be provided, was a violation of the individual's right to life, liberty, and security of the person, all of which are guaranteed under section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The Court of Queen's Bench ruled against Allen on 31 March 2014.[9][10]

A campus pro-life club caused controversy at the University of Calgary when they erected a graphic display as part of a "Genocide Awareness Project," which illustrated results of an abortion along with historical atrocities such as the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide. This case was the ninth time in which the group had put on the display. University security staff requested that the students turn the graphic portions of their display inward, away from passers-by. When the eight students running the display refused to comply, the university initiated non-academic misconduct proceedings against them. The school's Vice-Provost ruled that the actions constituted misconduct and penalized the students with a formal written warning.[11]

This penalty was appealed to the University of Calgary's Board of Governors, which refused to hear the appeal and upheld the penalty. The students then requested that the Court of Queen's Bench order the Board of Governors to allow an appeal.[12] The court ruled in April 2014 that the Board of Governors' decision not to hear the appeal of the students "[lacked] justification, transparency and intelligibility" and ordered the board to hear the students' appeal.[13]

In 2019, the Justice Centre took on three cases related to license plates that were revoked due to complaints — two in Manitoba, one in Nova Scotia. John Carpay stated that without such action, "we move closer to a society where people have a legal right not to feel offended which means that there’s less freedom of expression."[14] The Manitoba plates were "ASIMIL8", issued to a Star Trek fan, and "NDN CAR", issued to a First Nations man. The Nova Scotia plate was "GRABHER", which caused controversy as the surname of the car's driver, Lorne Grabher, is similar to the phrase "grab her".[15] The Canadian Civil Liberties Association supported the plaintiffs in these cases as well.[16]

In 2018, the Justice Centre took on the first of a constellation of cases involving J.Yaniv who self identifies as a transgender female, but whom was born male. Yaniv had requested and was refused the sex specific, esthetic service of female genital waxing, a procedure termed a "Brazilian". Yaniv appeared to target ethnic minority women to punish them for their cultural and religious views regarding contact with non-related males. The Justice Centre represented five British Columbian estheticians at the BC Human Rights Tribunal The tribunal rendered a judgement for the estheticians to legitimately refuse to handle male genitalia against their will. In October 2019 the Tribunal further ordered costs against Yaniv in the amount of $2000.00 payable to each of three of the more than fifteen estheticians who had complaints filed against them by Yaniv. [17] Since August 2019, Yaniv has filed two additional[18] complaints against estheticians with the BC Human Rights Tribunal.

In 2012 the private evangelical school Trinity Western University (TWU) completed a proposal to establish its own law school. Several groups objected to the establishment of this law school because of TWU's Community Covenant Agreement, a code of conduct, which is mandatory for all students to agree to. Unlike codes of conduct at many universities throughout Canada, however, TWU's Community Covenant Agreement requires explicit acceptance of an evangelical ethical framework including bans on gossip, vulgar language, pornography, and sexual conduct "that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman".[19]

As a result of opposition to the Community Covenant Agreement the memberships of the Law Society of Upper Canada (now the Law Society of Ontario), the Law Society of British Columbia,[20] and the Nova Scotia Barristers' Society voted to not accredit the law school. This prevented graduates from being automatically admitted to practice law in those three provinces, though they were still able to apply for individual admission to the society after graduation.

The Justice Centre acted as an intervenor in the cases of Trinity Western University v Nova Scotia Barristers' Society (court ruled in favour of TWU), Trinity Western University v The Law Society of Upper Canada (court ruled in favour of LSUC), and Trinity Western University v Law Society of British Columbia (court ruled in favour of TWU).

Both the Ontario and BC rulings were appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada, with the Justice Centre intervening in both cases.[21] On 15 June 2018 the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the law societies in 7–2 decisions for both Trinity Western University v Law Society of Upper Canada and Law Society of British Columbia v Trinity Western University.[22] The majority decisions said that TWU's Community Covenant would deter LGBT students from attending the proposed law school and that equal access to legal education, diversity in the legal profession and preventing harm to LGBT students were in the public interest.[23]