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Thomson Newspapers Co v Canada (AG)

freedom of expression case in Supreme Court of Canada

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ7795888 ↗
Source-derived summary

Thomson Newspapers Co v Canada (AG), [1998] 1 S.C.R. 877, is a leading Supreme Court of Canada decision on the right to freedom of expression in which the Supreme Court struck down a law that prohibited the publication, broadcast, or dissemination of opinion surveys within the last three days of a federal election campaign, as it violated section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The provision clearly restricted expression and was found to be too restrictive to be justified under section 1 of the Charter.

Editorial summary

“Thomson Newspapers Co v Canada (AG)” enters the record as freedom of expression case in Supreme Court of Canada. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Thomson, Newspapers and Canada can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1998—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1998-05-29. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Thomson, Newspapers and Canada.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Thomson Newspapers Co v Canada (AG)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Thomson, Newspapers and Canada provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7795888. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1998.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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  2. Expand the search: follow Thomson Newspapers Co v Canada (AG) primary sources, Thomson Newspapers Co v Canada (AG) archive and Thomson research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Thomson Newspapers Co v Canada (AG)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.