Law:

Section:

(a) Election--- ----"Sponsor" of "election advertising"--- Meaning--- Freedom of expression--- Political self-expression--- Scope--- Individuals or organizations who wished to "sponsor election advertising" were required by S. 239(1) of Election Act, R.S.B.C. 1996 (Canada) to register with Chief Electoral Officer---Question as to whether individuals who engaged in political self-expression through small-scale election activities like displaying homemade signs in their windows, putting bumper stickers on their cars, or wearing T-shirts with political messages on them, came within definition of "sponsor" and needed to register---Held, that the words of Ss. 228, 229 & 239 of the Election Act, R.S.B.C. 1996 [Canada] ("the Act") read in their grammatical and ordinary sense and harmoniously with the statutory scheme, the object of the Act, and the intention of the legislature, indicated that a "sponsor" required to register was an individual or organization who received an advertising service from another individual or organization, whether in exchange for payment or without charge---Individuals who neither paid others for advertising services nor received advertising services from others without charge were not "sponsors" within the meaning of S. 229(1) of the Act---Any individual working entirely on his own, without paying for or receiving any service in the creation or dissemination of election advertising, was not required to comply with any of these provisions of the Act---Such individuals may transmit their own points of view, whether by posting a handmade sign in a window, or putting a bumper sticker on a car, or wearing a T-shirt with a message on it, without registering---Small-scale election advertising of such nature was not covered by the Act---By confining the registration requirement to sponsors and exempting individual political self-expression by persons who were not sponsors, S. 239 of the Act tailored the impingement on expression to what was required by the object of the Act---Appeal was dismissed accordingly. (b) Fundamental rights--- ----"Freedom of expression"---Scope---"Political expression" laid at the core of the guarantee of "free…