This week, the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada is hosting a conference on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Charter of Rights. Sen. Hugh Segal, who was there in 1981/82 for the negotiations, weighs in on a popular myth:
Canada was not in any way bereft of rights and freedoms prior to the Charter, just as we were not lacking in constitutional protections. Nor in fact were we lacking in a constitution. The fact that our constitution was an act of the British Parliament, passed in 1867, did not diminish that fact that it was passed by that parliament on the basis of an agreement reached by the Fathers of Confederation.
Before that time, Canadian legislatures and courts had been acting to protect human rights and uphold the core rights of freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of religion and the rest for centuries.
While chronologies of events can be troubling to the myth-makers, they are instructive in terms of what actually happened as opposed to what the myth-makers would wish us to believe happened.
It is baffling the number of people who actually believe that the concept of "rights" in Canada began only after 1982; one of the greatest (of the many) myth-making successes of Canada's vibrant Trudeau legacy industry.
Should be a really interesting conference. Those who are attending (I cannot) are encouraged to post comments about it here.
# posted by Adam Daifallah : 11:31 AM
