April 21, 2007
What exactly ARE we celebrating?
From: ThePolitic.com
http://www.thepolitic.com/archives/2007/04/17/the-charter-an-emperor-with-no-clothes/
The Charter: An Emperor With No Clothes
Written By: Matthew
Posted: April 17th, 2007
Many things could be said about the inclusion of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on its 25th anniversary. Jean Chretien fawned over it earlier on CTV Newsnet, media pundits of all stripes paid it dear lipservice and various professionally ticked groups like EGALE or Planned Parenthood wept over it’s legacy. Even many Tories, mostly of the libertarian or Red Tory ilk, have bought into the sham that this document is a model for the rest of the Earth and truly great. It is not. In fact, it is downright pitiful when compared to other pieces of fundamental rights legislation around the globe and throughout history. Today, I will simply outline a few key points that no Charter defender I’ve talked to has ever explained away effectively, and are issues that need to be addressed if we ever want to live in a truly free society again…
1) The Charter Is Undemocratic - Under this document, Parliament and the provincial Legislatures are essentially powerless in any attempt to represent their constituents if a court rules against a piece of legislation or a current law. What exactly makes a judge, and in particular the nine ones that walk around dressed like Santa Claus, so special, so important, so superior to the rest of us that they are capable of deciding the difference between right and wrong? Charterists freak out at the suggestion that judges should be accountable to the public, implying that the general Canadian public is either too stupid to know this fundamental difference or too morally imperfect to be trusted with such a decision. Might I point out as a rebuke that every Canadian justice as a) human and, in most cases, b) trained as a lawyer! Now who would you rather trust to know right and wrong: a farmer or a lawyer?
On top of this, the Charter is supposed to contain fundamental rights, as in they’re so important and predominant that people should naturally cherish their place in society that we all should be capable of defending them. Ah, but what about Nazi Germany, or "1984?" Well, maybe that tells you more about human nature’s dark side than it’s virtues…
2) The Charter Is The Protector of NOTHING - I have made the hypothetical argument for a while that under our current legal framework, the Supreme Court could rule through section 29 of the Charter (which deals with separate schools in the BNA Act) that employers have to pay a “living wage” to their employees. There is nothing in that section dealing with wages, but we’ve given our courts completely free reign to rule on anything and in any way that they please. Liberals call this a “living document” scheme; I prefer to call it tyranny. After all, what the courts granteth in the department of rights, the courts can taketh away when it suits their socially re-engineering minds!
3) The Charter Is Ignorant of Legal History - In comparisons to other major rights documents, not only is our Charter weak, but it is also arrogant. The U.S. founding fathers admitted in the 18th century that their Bill of Rights was monumental, but they also conceded that it would only benefit a just and moral people. The French were a little bolder, but even they said that their legal advances after the French Revolution had to be constantly defended. Trudeaumanian Canada? We’re so delusional that we believe that this document can cure all of society’s ills and keep those evil violators of human rights at bay!
4) The Charter Is Illegitimate - So Trudeau convinced nine other men in suits to support this document’s insertion into the Constitution. This might have flown back in the nineteenth century, when most of the world’s foundational democracies were in their infancy, but by the 1980s, wouldn’t it have been more civilized and enlightened to let the people themselves decide the values they wanted their country defined by?
5) The Charter Is Incomplete - Finally, it’s important to note that the Charter is supposed to give to society. That is only one side of the coin though, since society also expects certain tenants under the social contract model. What we greatly lack today is a Charter of Responsibilities that included, among other things, a responsibility to be loyal to the nation of Canada before all other nations, actively support and participate in our democratic system and to be respectful of this country’s heritage and history, which incidentally made it such a great place to live in in the first place!
This entry was written by Matthew and posted on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 9:46 pm
http://www.thepolitic.com/archives/2007/04/17/the-charter-an-emperor-with-no-clothes/
The Charter: An Emperor With No Clothes
Written By: Matthew
Posted: April 17th, 2007
Many things could be said about the inclusion of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on its 25th anniversary. Jean Chretien fawned over it earlier on CTV Newsnet, media pundits of all stripes paid it dear lipservice and various professionally ticked groups like EGALE or Planned Parenthood wept over it’s legacy. Even many Tories, mostly of the libertarian or Red Tory ilk, have bought into the sham that this document is a model for the rest of the Earth and truly great. It is not. In fact, it is downright pitiful when compared to other pieces of fundamental rights legislation around the globe and throughout history. Today, I will simply outline a few key points that no Charter defender I’ve talked to has ever explained away effectively, and are issues that need to be addressed if we ever want to live in a truly free society again…
1) The Charter Is Undemocratic - Under this document, Parliament and the provincial Legislatures are essentially powerless in any attempt to represent their constituents if a court rules against a piece of legislation or a current law. What exactly makes a judge, and in particular the nine ones that walk around dressed like Santa Claus, so special, so important, so superior to the rest of us that they are capable of deciding the difference between right and wrong? Charterists freak out at the suggestion that judges should be accountable to the public, implying that the general Canadian public is either too stupid to know this fundamental difference or too morally imperfect to be trusted with such a decision. Might I point out as a rebuke that every Canadian justice as a) human and, in most cases, b) trained as a lawyer! Now who would you rather trust to know right and wrong: a farmer or a lawyer?
On top of this, the Charter is supposed to contain fundamental rights, as in they’re so important and predominant that people should naturally cherish their place in society that we all should be capable of defending them. Ah, but what about Nazi Germany, or "1984?" Well, maybe that tells you more about human nature’s dark side than it’s virtues…
2) The Charter Is The Protector of NOTHING - I have made the hypothetical argument for a while that under our current legal framework, the Supreme Court could rule through section 29 of the Charter (which deals with separate schools in the BNA Act) that employers have to pay a “living wage” to their employees. There is nothing in that section dealing with wages, but we’ve given our courts completely free reign to rule on anything and in any way that they please. Liberals call this a “living document” scheme; I prefer to call it tyranny. After all, what the courts granteth in the department of rights, the courts can taketh away when it suits their socially re-engineering minds!
3) The Charter Is Ignorant of Legal History - In comparisons to other major rights documents, not only is our Charter weak, but it is also arrogant. The U.S. founding fathers admitted in the 18th century that their Bill of Rights was monumental, but they also conceded that it would only benefit a just and moral people. The French were a little bolder, but even they said that their legal advances after the French Revolution had to be constantly defended. Trudeaumanian Canada? We’re so delusional that we believe that this document can cure all of society’s ills and keep those evil violators of human rights at bay!
4) The Charter Is Illegitimate - So Trudeau convinced nine other men in suits to support this document’s insertion into the Constitution. This might have flown back in the nineteenth century, when most of the world’s foundational democracies were in their infancy, but by the 1980s, wouldn’t it have been more civilized and enlightened to let the people themselves decide the values they wanted their country defined by?
5) The Charter Is Incomplete - Finally, it’s important to note that the Charter is supposed to give to society. That is only one side of the coin though, since society also expects certain tenants under the social contract model. What we greatly lack today is a Charter of Responsibilities that included, among other things, a responsibility to be loyal to the nation of Canada before all other nations, actively support and participate in our democratic system and to be respectful of this country’s heritage and history, which incidentally made it such a great place to live in in the first place!
This entry was written by Matthew and posted on Tue Apr 17, 2007 at 9:46 pm
