April 17, 1982: The Queen signs the Constitution as Pierre Elliott Trudeau, then Canada’s prime minister, looks on, apparently bemused. Below: The Charter; a sterner Mr. Trudeau.CALGARY
Today is the 30th anniversary of our Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. On April 17, 1982, Queen Elizabeth signed our new Canadian Constitution, of which the Charter is part.
It should come as no surprise that the government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper – normally so obsessed with history, at least when it involves feats of arms – is ignoring this turning point in Canadian history.
Part of this, naturally, is mere partisan politics. The Constitution would not have “come home,” and the Charter would not be enshrined in law, had in not been for a Liberal prime minister, and one unpopular in Mr. Harper’s circle to boot: Pierre Elliott Trudeau.
More significantly, however, it would be fair to say that the far right in Canada, of which Mr. Harper is part, dislikes the Charter, and certain extremist elements of the right despise and abhor it. Is his concern about “constitutional divisions” sincere? Not very likely.
The Charter is enormously popular among ordinary Canadians in all provinces, including Quebec, however, because they understand immediately and intuitively that stating clearly what our rights are in a document that overrides all other laws is an effective way to protect citizens from the wealthy and the mighty who throughout history have always acted in their own class interests.
The Charter is an imperfect document, the product of a difficult compromise. But most of us know we are much better off with it than without it, and we are thankful to Mr. Trudeau for pressing forward determinedly on his constitutional project throughout 1981 and into 1982.
Critics of the Charter, like Mr. Harper and former Reform Party leader Preston Manning, usually base their critiques in the notion we somehow had more rights when Parliament was supreme and our rights were traditional but undefined. Because the Charter is popular they tend to couch their criticisms in the bloodless language of pedantry.
So, Mr. Harper said in the Globe and Mail on June 13, 2000, “I share many of the concerns of my colleagues and allies about biased ‘judicial activism’ and its extremes. … Serious flaws exist in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
Asked Mr. Manning: “Do Canadians enjoy more protection of their freedom because of a constitutionally entrenched Charter than the British do without one? I don’t think it’s made a quantum difference in that regard.”
But ordinary Canadians understand that our fundamental rights as individuals
are far better shielded by a document that defines them and states which rights are protected than by Parliamentary and Common Law traditions that, as Mr. Harper has proved on more than one occasion, can be simply brushed aside and ignored without political consequences.
That is why – notwithstanding the far right’s obvious preference for what the PM has called “the traditional approach of common law and parliamentary supremacy,” which is to say the tyranny of the majority when they can muster the votes and of the wealthy minority when they can’t – the Charter is here to stay.
We can be confident that much harsher things are said about the Charter by its enemies in the privacy of their in right-wing clubs than are normally made available for public consumption. (Conrad Black has dismissed the Charter as “a farce” and “a nuisance that has turned many of our under-qualified judges into feckless social tinkerers.” And the ignorant blatherskites of the prime minister’s separatist-owned media auxiliary despise the Charter literally to this day, risibly and ironically dismissing it as a mere sop to French Canadians like their boss.)
As a consequence, most enemies of the Charter have moved from assailing it directly to trying to use it to advance their own corporatist hobbyhorses and by attempting to subvert it through various stratagems.
So the likes of Mr. Harper and Wildrose Party campaign strategist Tom Flanagan have used the Charter to fight against such democratic reforms as legislation imposing contribution limits during election campaigns on the spurious grounds they abridge free speech and to argue restrictions on two-tier health care interfere with our freedom. Said Dr. Flanagan: “The ban on private health is an obvious abuse of an individual’s rights.”
Undermining the Charter through subversion takes the form of appointing judges who can be counted on to direct partisan judicial activism in a rightward direction, and campaigning to eliminate human rights commissions to make the defence of our rights more difficult and expensive, as is now being proposed by the Wildrose Party.
A conference in 2006 organized by leader Danielle Smith and Link Byfield, the party’s candidate in the Barrhead-Morinville-Westlock riding northwest of Edmonton, explored some of these themes and concluded, according to Mr. Byfield’s website, that “the courts should be restrained from inventing new laws under the Charter.”
By this, it is said here, he meant keeping the Charter from protecting individuals’ rights when they are in conflict with the corporate agenda.
Mr. Byfield is also the founder of the Citizens Centre for Freedom and Democracy, which stands, among other things, against expanding the influence of the Charter.
As quoted yesterday in this blog, Ms. Smith herself advises exploiting the weaknesses in the Charter by drafting laws that go as far as possible to abridge our rights through administrative rules without pulling the constitutional fire alarm. “Politicians are wily enough to find a way to violate Charter rights,” she explained in a column in the Calgary Herald on Jan. 14, 2006.
This is sadly true, and it is worthwhile remembering that many of the movers and shakers in the Wildrose Party as it creeps toward its goal of a reverse takeover of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives are friends neither of our Charter nor of our Charter rights.
Still, we are far better off with the Charter, which former New Democratic Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow described as a document that “embodies a set of values and ideals and principles that resonate with the Canadian public.”
So we should give thanks for it today, whether or not the Harper government ignores the anniversary, and remember both how we got it and who tried to keep us from having it.
This post also appears on Rabble.ca.
The only positive about this prime minister is that only 39% Canadians support him.
Happy Birthday to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The only positive about this prime minister is that only 39% Canadians support him.
Happy Birthday to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Well said. What people are waking up to is that the Charter is only as good as the judges who interpret it. By and large I think the quality of Canadian judges are very good, and I'm very pleased that we don't have the schism between left and right like the US Supreme Court. Our Supreme court has walked a fine line between deference to the elected Parliament, and upholding the Charter when it seems there have been unreasonable encroachments on it. Of course when "judicial activism" sides with the ordinary people it enrages the right wing, and when it agrees with something the right wing wants they are happy.
I had my doubts about the Charter when it passed but it was an important milestone in our history and I'm glad it happened. One could argue that 30 years doesn't particularly deserve a celebration, where 50 years might, without implying they don't agree with the Charter.
Well I see this morning that Danielle Smith, the scientist, is now doubting the main theory of climate change. The next one is that dinossaurs never existed because they are at least 50 million years old and the Earth was only created 7 thousand ago. The bones were buried by the communist party to confuse us.
Happy Birthday again.
Some concepts embodied in the Charter apparently need a bit more publicity…
"Alberta Election 2012: Calgary-based Wildrose candidate attributes his electoral edge to being Caucasian By Keith Gerein, edmontonjournal.com April 17, 2012 2:02 PM"
Just a lovely outlook…
Maybe the new WRosie Alberta Advantage: a land where Caucasians "believe they can speak to all the community."
Read more: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/life/Alberta+Election+2012+Calgary+based+Wildrose+candidate+attributes+electoral+edge+being/6473687/story.html#ixzz1sKXCIDx9
Also I found a commenter under that news article saying this in reaction:
“abpatriot 2:06 PM on 4/17/2012
What he really meant to say was: WRA stands for White Republicans of Alberta.”
This commenter better watch out… he’s probably not the kind of ‘patriot’ WRose has in mind as it goes all in on a certain brand of religion-persecutors/unAlbertans/liberals/human rights lovers against us W-rosies poor widdle burn-in-lakes of fire diddums.
Flanagan and the other Harperites may be taking names.
http://www.nowpublic.com/culture/tom-flanagan-julian-assange-should-be-assassinated-video-2733731.html
btw…Tom, I'm just pokin' fun. really…you know politics as a bloodsport type of fun, eh… Tom?
God bless the Canadian Charter of Rights.
Thanks for another great post. Your blog has taken a nice seat next to the globe and cbc in my news feed.
Harper's silence isn't a surprise. He's figured out the apathetic population: give them nothing to think about and they will think about nothing.
Yay charter! At least we have a symbolic defense.
And yet the charter offers no protection for the rights of the english (and other non-french speaking/writing)population in Quebec.
Ah well, once WRA wins the midnight round ups can begin (just like Harpers) right Dave
Kinda have to admit I am loving the desperation in the Tories as of late, attack, attack attack.
Strange that they dredge up Peter and Don yet their ads claim they are not the old party…
FINALLY got an ndp flyer yesterday, great idea, would have been better if they were printed on actual lunch bags, BUT the message is dated.
The Tories think they have this one in the bag might have been true 2 weeks ago, but the level of deperation displayed this past week is entertaining to watch
Which Boogy Man will win?
Ah, Turdeau–that great champion of civil rights: espousing antisemitic and fascist sympathies, whilst sitting out World War II, imposing martial law in Quebec, in 1970, authorizing criminal activity by the RCMP (including arson), expropriating thousands of hectares of farmers' land for a never-completed airport megaproject, and skinny-dipping with murderous dictator Fidel Castro. What a man!
The PET Charter wasn't the Alpha and Omega of Civil rights in Canada. Actually. these rights and freedoms existed B.T. (Before Trudeau), as a part of centuries of Common Law heritage…including many, such as property rights, which the former fascist sympathizer, wannabe despot, and buddy of communist dictators Pierre Trudeau decided NOT to include in his Charter (e.g., property rights). And, arguably, the rights and freedoms of Canadians have suffered in these post-Trudeauist decades. From Human Rights Tribunals with 100% conviction rates that impose draconian fines and speech bans for politically-incorrect quips and quotes from the Bible, to the extreme crackdowns on freedom of expression and assembly during the October Crisis and the 1987 APEC Summit, to the Firearms Act and other Liberal legislation that tosses aside freedom from unreasonable, warrantless search and siezure, Mr Fuddle-Duddle and his Liberal posse have cost Canadians their rights and freedoms, rather than granting them.
Sorry Ira, you have got more than a few things confused. The War Measures Act (not martial law) was declared and enforced across Canada, including by some very intimidating military policemen to this writer in an Alberta university class – so I have nothing but contempt for Trudeau and the RCMP wrong doing unleashed against union organizers, social activists, and others over the next ten or so years (very well documented in the McDonald Royal Commission). This formed part of the basis for actually including a Charter of Rights and Freedoms in the Constitution.
The Mirabel airport land expropriations were carried out by the Quebec government against the Anglo farmers and I met many of the refugees from that action. This was done before the 1982 Constitution Act under the old British system.
So you are completely wrong about common law property rights, unless you are male Royalty. For the rest of us under that tradition, we are nothing more than sheep on the land and for most of history, had fewer rights.
It was the oil industry and their vassal, Lougheed who most effectively opposed the inclusion of property rights in the repatriation of the Constitution. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is not perfect, but it builds on Diefenbaker’s anemic version he managed to get through in the early (??) 1960s.
Wildrose is financed by the same bunch that finance the Conservatives so you are dreaming if you think property rights will rank very high in their administration.
There could not have been a Wildrose conference in 2006 as the party did not exist at that time.
Out of deference to Mr. Dell's point, which is accurate in as far a it goes, I have deleted the the word "Wildrose." I have also added the link to Mr. Byfield's site whence this information comes. The Wildrose Party existed before 2008 in unregistered form and a welter of far-right parties that were essentially the same group under such names as Alberta Alliance existed throughout the period. I stand by the point that the Rosies held this conference and conducted the business discussed. http://www.linkbyfield.ca/bio/the-wildrose-alliance
To Charter or not to Charter that is the question. In all rights the charter does sound good; but, it seems now to have been tossed aside by the courts and their cash cowing police. 3 times now I have been charged by the police for driving (riding) a power assisted bicycle without a drivers license and without insurance. Where is my right of mobility or even passage (BNA act) ; especially, when I was following the 70+ bicycle laws and respecting road laws and riding safely. The first 2 tickets of 3 charges I fought under the charter the police never showed. The third ticket when I went to the court house (Nanaimo B.C.) I was not able to file a Charter arguement as they removed it from the appropriate form. The third ticket of 2 charges was a joke as the judge denied me the court right to file a full disclosure document as this so called motored vehicle is in a grey area. Can’t say I wasn’t lucky I just got charged for driving without a drivers license, the no insurance one was dropped, because; you can’t insure a bicycle. When reality of peoples rights are seen for what they are, there are none. Example: Murder is illegal; yet, Stevey boy and his buddy Bush has forced men, women, fathers and mothers to go and do murdering for them. Stevey also used the acts of Hitler to shut the government down so you wonder why he hates the excharter of rights. At 50 I have no rights of mobility or passage unless I pay a corporation (ICBC) to ride my PABicycle on the peoples roads. Or if I want to be a hero I have to put my life in the hands of a murderer and finance one of the worst gangs in canada, need I kiss the butts of their guns too.