The Ligue des droits et libertés (known in English as the Quebec Civil Liberties Union) is a not-for-profit human rights

Human rights

Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...

 organization based in the Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 province of Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

. It was founded in 1963 by Pierre Trudeau

Pierre Trudeau

Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, , usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979, and again from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984.Trudeau began his political career campaigning for socialist ideals,...

 and Jacques Hébert

Jacques Hébert (Canadian politician)

Jacques Hébert, OC was a Canadian author, journalist, publisher, Senator, and world traveler having visited more than 130 countries.-History:...

, both of whom later became national political figures. The organization is committed to upholding the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly . The Declaration arose directly from the experience of the Second World War and represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled...

.

History and policies

Pierre Trudeau, one of the co-founders of the union, served as prime minister of Canada

Prime Minister of Canada

The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...

 from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. Jacques Hébert served as president of the union for part of this period and opposed Trudeau's use of the War Measures Act

War Measures Act

The War Measures Act was a Canadian statute that allowed the government to assume sweeping emergency powers in the event of "war, invasion or insurrection, real or apprehended"...

 to resolve the FLQ Crisis.

The organization opposes Canada's policy of detaining people under security certificate

Security certificate

In Canadian law, a security certificate is a mechanism by which the Government of Canada can detain and deport foreign nationals and all other non-citizens living in Canada...

s.