Straight Talk on Annexation to the US

Reading local history makes clear how artificial the international border between Canada and the US is. Everyone had and has relatives in the States. A good number of men buried in the local cemetery fought for the Union in the American Civil War. American history is our history.

We are, by all accepted standards, the same people, culturally and ethnically, with the exception of Francophone Quebec. Not only do we speak the same language: we speak it with the same accent, so that I usually cannot tell, when I meet someone abroad, if they are Canadian or American. The same cannot be said of two Englishmen meeting abroad: they will know immediately by accent if someone is from Yorkshire as opposed to Cornwall. The same is true for France, or Italy, or Germany. They are far more regionally ethnically diverse than English Canada and the US.

The reason for Canada to exist as an independent entity was that some Americans at the time of the Revolution wanted to retain ties to Britain and to the royal family. That raison d’etre disappeared in about the 1930s. Canada now really has no more ties to Britain than does the US. The royal family is purely symbolic; just a face on the coins and stamps.

By all logic, English Canada should join the United States.

It is, in the first case, a matter of efficiency. It is costly to duplicate services. If Canadian Confederation was a good idea, joining the US is just an extension of the same good idea.

In the second case, it makes economic sense. A perfect common market would increase the prosperity of both sides by dropping significant barriers to trade and commerce. But it would especially increase the prosperity of Canadians, with greater access to the United States’ lager market.

But the strongest reason to unite is the Canadian Constitution. The passage of the Constitution Act in 1982 was a fatal mistake. It has turned Canada into a dictatorship by the unelected judiciary, it has enshrined gross inequalities, and it is virtually impossible to legally amend. The simplest course to change it would seem to be to join the US and come under the US constitution instead.

Unlike the US Constitution, or the prior Canadian Bill of Rights, the Canadian Constitution actually limits human rights. Citizens have rights “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” 

This vague phrase leaves it all up to judges. Who cannot be trusted—power corrupts.

The vagueness of the Charter generally gives the judiciary too much opportunity to interpret. The contrast to the clarity of the Canadian or the American Bill of Rights is striking.

Equality rights are denied by the phrase: “[this] does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.”

Any particular group can be declared disadvantaged, and thereby given preference. Indeed, this is the usual trick. Hitler argued that ethnic Germans were disadvantaged by the Jews. South African Boers considered themselves disadvantaged after the Boer War. Mussolini declared Italians disadvantaged after Versailles. The whites of the US South considered themselves disadvantaged by the carpetbaggers after the Civil War.

It stands to reason that any group given preferential treatment by government is not disadvantaged by definition. For “disadvantaged,” read “advantaged,” and the matter is clear. Discrimination is enshrined in the Canadian Constitution. It is not in the American one.

Equality rights are also violated in clause 25: “The guarantee in this Charter of certain rights and freedoms shall not be construed so as to abrogate or derogate from any aboriginal, treaty or other rights or freedoms that pertain to the aboriginal peoples of Canada.”

This means there will forever be at least two classes of Canadian citizenship, and never equality. Aboriginals have special extra rights and freedoms according to the constitution.

And the gross mistake of “multiculturalism” is also enshrined in the Constitution, so that it cannot be corrected. “This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.”

This commits the government to working against the shared Canadian culture—just the opposite of what a government is there to do. For “multicultural heritage” read “ethnic ghettos.”

The fundamental problem is that those who drafted the Canadian Constitution had no vision nor principles other than the partisan considerations of their day: keeping various special interest groups happy. 

It leaves us no way out but either revolution, or annexation to the US. Of those who choices, annexation is vastly preferable.

Canadians Don't Have Freedom of Speech?

 

This video from the National Post is wrong.

First, it misrepresents the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It admits that the Charter cites the right to freedom of expression, but then says it can be abrogated on any reasonable grounds. That is not what the charter says. It says this and other rights are “subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” 

This is necessary to allow for laws against slander, for example, or fraud. 

Such limits must be “demonstrably justified”: a legal appeal may be made, and the courts can deny it.

The right to freedom of speech has not been honoured by our legislatures or in the Canadian courts. That is a scandal.

The provinces and the feds can also invoke the “notwithstanding” clause, as our narrator points out, but this is not as straightforward as he implies. When that clause is used, the law can remain in force for no more than five years. This seems a reasonable exception to cover emergency situations or judicial overreach. It has rarely been invoked.

Our narrator neglects to mention that freedom of speech is also separately guaranteed in the Canadian Bill of Rights, 1960; although this applies only to the federal government. Freedom of speech is recognized in and required by common law.

Canadians are also separately guaranteed freedom of expression under article 19 of the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, to which Canada is a signatory. It is therefore also a treaty right and a right in international law. 

But above and beyond any of that, human rights are not given by government, nor can they be withheld. They are given by God and by being human. If any government infringes a human right, regardless what their constitution says, that government is acting illlicitly.

It is scandalous that a prominent Canadian newspaper would promote the fiction that Canadians do not have freedom of speech. It suggests how corrupt our elite has become. Including all branches of the legacy media.

Doug Ford Seizes Dictatorial Powers? Not.

 

A Ford, but perhaps not a Lincoln.

Some express alarm at Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s declared intent to invoke the “notwithstanding clause“ of the Canadian Constitution in order to override charter rights and allow legislation to limit campaign spending by third parties. I think it is a great idea. Even though I do not feel great about limiting campaign spending by third parties.

A bit of background here: the Canadian Constitution guarantees certain rights and freedoms. The courts can disallow legislation it feels is in violation of these. The legislature can respond by invoking this “notwithstanding clause” and overrule the courts. The legislation goes into effect, but must be renewed every five years.

Critics are objecting that Ford wants to override the Constitution. This is exactly the opposite of the truth: he is invoking the Constitution as written and as intended.

Traditionally, iin the Westminster system, Parliament is the “highest court in the land,” on the premise that the people are sovereign. Giving any court the ability to overrule the people’s representatives risks giving government itself to an oligarchy: those who appoint the Supreme Court justices, the legal profession and its gatekeepers, the professions and the professional classes. Some of the framers of the Canadian Constitution Act, notably Allan Blakeney, insisted on the notwithstanding clause to protect democracy.

It is important to know that a body of skilled lawyers have examined some legislation in detail, and say it is in violation of charter rights. This is helpful information for the public. If the government persists notwithstanding, they can decide to punish the government accordingly at the next election. But we must not surrender the people’s right to make that decision.

And time has proven the framers exactly right. Down in the US, it has come to be expected that Democrat-appointed judges and Republican-appointed judges will vote not according to the Constitution as written, but by party line. And they have become increasingly activist in disallowing legislation.

In Canada, it is worse. The Canadian Supreme Court is appealed to more easily and often. It has not only developed a habit of disallowing legislation but of demanding legislation be passed. And their rulings produce major social changes, without public accountability. They required Alberta to insert a reference to homosexual rights in their proposed provincial charter of rights. They struck down all limitations on abortion. They required the legalization of gay marriage; they redefined aboriginal rights, redefined who is an aboriginal, and on and on. They have developed a dangerous taste for power.

It matters little whether one agrees with this or that ruling, or them all. The power is arbitrary and capricious, and there is no reason to expect it will forever be used in the public interest.

Luckily, unlike the US, Canada has a constitutional remedy in the notwithstanding clause. The only problem has been, until now, a lack of courage among our elected politicians in invoking it. Quebec has used it regularly, but in the rest of Canada, only Saskatchewan, and only once. Doug Ford does us all a favour, and our grandchildren, if he further cements the precedent.

Notwithstanding My Huge Respect for Andrew Coyne...

I generally worship at the feet of Andrew Coyne. He almost never resorts to name-calling or prejudicial language, but makes his cases purely on their merits. He is fair to the opposing viewpoint. But that is not to say he is never wrong.

He is wrong now. He has just written a column objecting to the Notwithstanding Clause in the Canadian constitution. The Notwithstanding Clause allows Canadian legislatures to pass legislation that is invulnerable to court challenge on grounds of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. As a further check, any such exemption must be renewed by new legislation every five years.

“Why,” he asks, “is there such a ready market for invoking the notwithstanding clause, by means of which governments are permitted to suspend the rights guaranteed in the Charter, on the sole proviso that they declare openly they are doing so?”

I don’t see his objection at all. Firstly, there is certainly no “ready market” here. Since the Notwithstanding Clause was inserted in the Canadian constitution in 1982, it has only been used by two provincial legislatures. It has never been used by the federal government. Of the two provinces, it was used only once by Saskatchewan, and unnecessarily: the legislation, it turned out, conformed with the Charter anyway. It was used as a matter of course, and of protest, by the PQ government in Quebec for its first few years, but then abandoned. It was attempted once more since, later, by a Quebec government, but they backed down in the face of public protest.

So it is hardly being overused. Why should we not want to preserve it, then, as a constitutional escape valve in case of need? This seems especially necessary because the Canadian constitution is exceptionally difficult to amend.

Removing the notwithstanding clause gives the courts dictatorial powers. They are simply on their honour, as professionals, not to abuse it. This gives me pause.

It is not so much, as Coyne claims, a question of allowing the legislature to suspend charter rights, as allowing them to overrule a rogue court judgment they feel does not itself conform to the charter. Surely Coyne cannot suppose this to be impossible? Judges are not infallible.

Do we need the courts to be supreme over the legislature? Why? They have never been so in Britain, and Britain has a reputation for preserving human rights as good as Canada’s.

It seems to me that having a formal constitutional guarantee of rights is never itself of much real value. The old Soviet Union had an exemplary constitutional bill of rights, as does Communist China. It all really boils down in the end to the will of those in charge. They can twist the words any way they want; that is a historical truth. Who would have suspected two hundred years ago that a right to gay marriage was in the US Constitution?

So it is really a matter of who we trust more to protect our real, God-given rights: a small group of learned professionals, or the general popular will?

It seems to me that the current “Notwithstanding Clause” is a nearly perfect solution: the courts place a check on the popular will, and their prestige counts for something, but ultimately, the popular will can place a check on the courts as well.