I find myself in substantial agreement with Rodrigue Tremblay’s letter to the Devoir yesterday. His complaint is that Trudeau’s 1982 Charter Revolution replaced parliamentary sovereignty by the rule of judges bound to implement the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as those judges see fit to decide. It is the same as Sterling Lyon’s objection at the time of the Charter in 1982, and the same as numerous English-Canadian conservatives.
En 1982, le système politique et le système judiciaire canadiens ont été profondément transformés, et cela, sans l’accord du Parlement québécois et sans l’accord du peuple québécois. En effet, le gouvernement libéral de Pierre Elliott Trudeau a imposé une Constitution canadienne qui enlève aux Parlements canadiens, et au Parlement québécois en particulier, une foule de pouvoirs qui, selon la tradition britannique, relevaient d’eux.
Rappelons qu’avant 1982, selon la tradition britannique, la Cour suprême pouvait statuer en dernier recours sur la forme juridique des lois, mais pas sur le fond, cette dernière étant la prérogative des Parlements élus considérés comme souverains.
Cependant, l’introduction d’une « Charte des droits et libertés », basée sur l’idéologie politique du multiculturalisme (art. 27), et en confiant à la Cour suprême le soin d’invalider les lois des Parlements élus qui ne sont pas compatibles avec cette idéologie, c’est tout un pan des pouvoirs des élus et du peuple qui a été transféré aux juges non élus. C’est dans cette perspective que l’on peut parler au Canada d’un « gouvernement des juges », comme on parle en Iran d’un « gouvernement des ayatollahs ».
The comparison to Iran’s government of ayatollahs is a rhetorical device I would not employ, but it is Tremblay’s letter not mine. Rosalie Abella and that ilk of professional leftist is obnoxious enough on her own without being likened to Shi’ite clergy.
His essential contention is that the clause favouring a multicultural heritage for Canada is an interpretive clause, and no one has asked for this judicial revolution. {I disagree. Unfortunately, we appear to have done so}.
27. This Charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent with the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canadians.
The essence of the Quebecois opposition to this Charter is that they have no intention of disappearing at some rate dictated by federally-appointed judges.
Conservatives in English Canada need to walk a fine line between objecting to Quebec’s authoritarian collectivism, which is an argument about the substance of political culture, and the procedural objections they have to judge-made law.
Thus, in another letter to the Devoir by Frederic Bastien we can see that resistance to judge-made law and the political correctness that goes with it, is mixed up with the objection to cultural relativism.
Tout cela a pour effet d’empêcher le débat démocratique. Tout devient une question de droits sacrés et immanents. Aucun compromis n’est possible et l’adversaire politique devient l’incarnation du mal. Voilà qui explique les comparaisons outrancières avec la Russie de Poutine faites par Charles Taylor, tout comme la pluie d’accusations de racisme qui a accueilli le projet du PQ. Cette campagne n’a d’autres buts que de culpabiliser la majorité afin de le lui faire accepter un individualisme débridé qui érode les valeurs collectives au profit du relativisme moral.
Rough translation:
All this (judicialization of decision-making) has the effect of preventing political discussion. Everything becomes a question of sacred and immanent rights. This explains the outrageous comparisons made by Charles Taylor of Quebec to Putin’s Russia, and the hail of accusations of racism that greeted the PQ’s charter of values. This campaign has no other objective than to blame the majority in order to make them accept an unbridled individualism, which erodes collective values to the profit of moral relativism.
Every conservative, every person concerned with community, should be concerned that a high-trust, well-functioning society can be wrecked by insufficient attention to the needs of the public.
Take for instance the recent case where New York City’s stop and frisk law, which has led to a massive decline of gun crime, and the return of safety and commerce to New York’s citizens, was overturned by an elderly Democratic judge, who declared in advance her opposition to the law. People will die because of that decision. Yet the logic of “disparate impact” meant that the law was racially discriminatory, since most of the people stopped and frisked were black and Hispanic. Naturally, because these were the largest components of the gun-bearing population intent on crime.
My point is, beware of criticizing Quebec’s position on judge-made law. It may be your own. And you and they may well be right.