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A conversation with the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper and L. Ian MacDonald As the first anniversary of his government approached, Prime Minister Stephen Harper sat down in his Centre Block office for a conversation with Policy Options Editor L. Ian MacDonald. The half-hour interview, conducted in English and French, covered a wide range of issues, from Canada-US relations to Afghanistan, from the fiscal imbalance to climate change. "To rebuild a shattered nation, a failed state, and to make it functional again" by Omar Samad Why is Canada one of 35 countries in the NATO mission in Afghanistan? Omar Samad, Afghan Ambassador to Canada, offered some historical background, and some answers, in these extemporaneous remarks to an IRPP working lunch in Montreal. Five years after the galvanizing events of 9/11, he says, “we have a very young democracy that is trying to take root in Afghanistan.” "Dropping out to get rich" by Todd Hirsch [summary not available] "The Liberals: stumbling out of a hall of mirrors" by Robin V. Sears The victory of Stéphane Dion at the Liberal convention was widely reported as a surprise, but in fact it was a successful insurgency by younger Liberals against the party establishment and its two front-runners, Michael Ignatieff and Bob Rae. Ignatieff had been outside the country for 30 years and his vision of Canada proved incompatible with the party of Trudeau and Chrétien. Rae was in another party for most of his adult life, and led the provincial NDP in four elections against Ontario Liberals. Dion, who should have been fourth after the first ballot, finished third, two votes ahead of Kennedy, when six Kennedy delegates parked with Martha Hall Findlay on the first ballot. In the end, the federal Liberals coalesced around one of their own, the third man, as a compromise choice over the two outsiders. Contributing writer Robin Sears captures all the drama of the most exciting Canadian leadership convention in decades. "Le retour du couple « Québec rouge-Ottawa bleu »" by Michel C. Auger Following the election of Stéphane Dion at the head of the Liberal Party of Canada, surveys have revealed a significant, if modest, increase in the party’s support. Does this regaining of support mark the Liberals’ return to grace, or is it merely a blip? Journalist Michel C. Auger leans toward the second. One month after Dion’s election, he notes, the close alliance between the Stephen Harper Conservatives and the Jean Charest Liberals “seems as strong as it was in the Robert Bourassa and Brian Mulroney period.” Analyzing the motivations and interests of the principal actors on the Quebec political scene, he concludes that it is in both Harper and Charest’s interests to see the other re-elected. "When green went gold: Dion and the greening of the Grits" by John Duffy The environment was the issue that produced the winning green coalition at the Liberal convention, “a kind of green generational wave,” writes John Duffy, “churning the Dion and Kennedy camps together into a winning combination.” A wave of green scarves appeared before the second ballot, and grew through the fourth ballot. “The symbolism was unmistakable and the message crystal clear,” Duffy writes, “a vote for Dion was a vote for a thoroughgoing, environmentally oriented Liberal rebranding.” Dion is the first politician to ride the environmental issue to the leadership of any leading political party in the Western world. Duffy, the author of the acclaimed Fights of Our Lives, a study of watershed Canadian elections, looks down the road and sees “the electoralization of the environmental issue set.” Or green as pure political gold. "Turnaround: a political party rebounds" by Steven MacKinnon The Liberal Party of Canada got a wake-up call from the voters in last January’s election, but still managed to go into opposition with more than 100 seats in the current minority Parliament. Within just 10 months, the Liberals organized an exciting leadership convention and adopted important financial and structural reforms that will streamline their activities and enhance their prospects of a return to power. The Liberal Party’s former national director, Steven MacKinnon, shares his reflections on rebuilding the Liberal brand. "What I saw at the Liberal party" by Antonia Maioni The Liberal Party leadership convention last December ended up defying many of the “conventions” associated with party leadership contests: the race was wide open; no one could call the winner in advance; and the front-runners failed to win the day. Stéphane Dion’s triumph bloomed within a hothouse atmosphere in which political intuition and identity still resonated, and in a party where gender issues and the divisive notions of nation have yet to be resolved. In this birds-eye view of the convention on the ground, McGill University’s Antonia Maioni draws out some political insights and media commentary on what happened at the Liberals’ big party in Montreal. "Charter values don't equal Canadian values: strong support for same-sex and property rights" by Nik Nanos Canadians have long been known as supporters, and many political leaders have portrayed themselves as defenders, of the Charter. But how deep and informed is that support? In conjunction with the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada’s conference, “The Charter @ 25,” we asked Nik Nanos of SES Research to drill down on the attitudes of Canadians towards the Charter. What came back from this SES poll for Policy Options was not exactly the stuff of conventional wisdom. For example, only 5 percent of Canadians equate Charter values with Canadian values. And while Canadians are ambivalent about the notwithstanding clause in the Charter, Nanos writes, “only half of them are even aware of its existence.” "How we got the Charter: a reality check" by Hugh Segal The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the end result of a decade of discussions for terms of patriation of the Canadian Constitution that began with the Victoria Conference in 1971 and finally concluded a decade later with the agreement between Ottawa and nine provinces on patriating the Constitution with a Charter of Rights. The terms of patriation, and the amending formula, were always key drivers of the process. The Charter was essentially an add-on toward the end, and even then was only made possible in the November 1981 agreement because of the inclusion of the notwithstanding clause. Hugh Segal, who represented the Ontario government throughout, and was present at the creation of the Charter, separates Charter myth from reality. "La Charte canadienne des droits et libertés : reflet d'un humanisme chrétien" by Max Nemni Since it was entrenched in the Constitution, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has been criticized in some quarters for its excessive liberalism and for being contrary to Quebec’s political culture and aspirations. Yet, notes Max Nemni, a survey conducted in 2002 shows that 91 percent of francophone Quebecers support the Charter. “The reason Quebecers particularly cherish it is because its values are engraved in their cultural heritage,” he writes. Nemni maintains there is a significant Christian influence running through the Charter, notably in the primacy accorded the individual. This originates in Pierre Elliott Trudeau's Catholic college education, particularly the individualist thought of Jacques Maritain, which profoundly marked Trudeau's political philosphy. "The notwithstanding clause: the Charter's homage to parliamentary democracy" by Peter H. Russell In this lively and spirited defence of the notwithstanding clause, the noted constitutional authority Peter H. Russell observes that “the Charter has become an object of worship” that has “thrown the notwithstanding clause (which, believe it or not, is part of the Charter) into bad political odour.” He notes: “It was included in the Charter for a very good reason: a belief that there should be a parliamentary check on a fallible judiciary’s decisions on the metes and bounds of our fundamental rights and freedoms.” Russell adds that “it was indeed a ‘deal-maker.’ Without it, Pierre Trudeau would not have had the support of nine premiers for his patriation package, and we would not have had the Charter in 1982.” "Petite histoire de la clause « nonobstant »" by Gil Rémillard There were several turning points in the constitutional negotiations that preceded the patriation of the Constitution, among them Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s concession to the inclusion of a notwithstanding clause in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. According to former minister of intergovernmental affairs and consitutional law expert Gil Rémillard, this contraversial clause is even “the result of one of the most significant compromises in the history of Canadian federal-provincial relations.” To help us understand its real implications, he traces here the context in which it was agreed upon. "Why the government was right to cancel the Court Challenges Program" by Tasha Kheiriddin In September 2006, the federal government announced it was cancelling the Court Challenges Program, which funded Charter-based challenges to legislation. While the decision prompted criticism from the opposition and interest groups, Tasha Kheiriddin writes that Canadians should applaud the move. She chronicles the history of the program and its effect on the Supreme Court’s interpretation of section 15, and concludes, “Overall, the effect of the CCP has been to privilege some litigants over others, and advance those litigants’ particular view of equality in the courts. It has helped further a statist political agenda by institutionalizing it in the form of government-sponsored interest group litigation.” "Post-Charter legal education: Does anyone teach law anymore?" by Roderick A. Macdonald How has the Charter changed legal education in Canada over the last quarter-century? Does anyone teach law anymore, in the way it used to be taught? Or is the teaching of law increasingly driven by the rights culture of the Charter, and the Charter precedents created in cases from the lower courts all the way to the Supreme Court? On the 25th anniversary of the Charter, McGill law professor Rod Macdonald offers what he terms “25 brief commentaries on post-Charter legal education.” For each of these “factoids,” he states “what I perceive to be a significant institutional, social, judicial or legal cultural change. Then I elaborate briefly upon how I perceive it to have affected law teaching.” He begins with an important argument, that “the historical substance of constitutional law has been progressively displaced by a preoccupation with the Charter.” "Language rights: liberties, claims and a very Canadian conversation" by Graham Fraser Language rights are not only central to the cultural identity of Canada’s two founding language communities, they are central to both Canada’s constitutional traditions, with group freedoms and denominational schools initially guaranteed under the British North America Act, and individual rights entrenched in the Charter. “In considering the Charter,” writes Canada’s new Commissioner of Official Languages, “it is easy to think that rights and freedoms are almost synonyms. They aren’t.” Graham Fraser considers the BNA Act versus Charter status of language rights, and recounts the modern context, from the B&B Commission of the 1960s, to the Official Languages Act of 1969, to the entrenchment of minority language rights in the Charter. "The Charter and multiculturalism" by Mohammad A. Qadeer Multiculturalism is a lived reality in today’s global economy and immigrantdependent society. It is sustained by human rights legislation and democratic constitutions. In Canada, it is driven by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Multiculturalism exists within a common ground of political, legal and economic institutions as well as norms, values, behaviours and practices that all members of a society are subject to. The common ground itself is evolving. It is not fixed. Its deliberate reconstruction through an inclusive process is as necessary as a periodic redefining of the scope of multiculturalism. "Is there a tyranny of the Charter in criminal justice and security policy?" by Kent Roach The Charter has had an important effect on criminal justice and security policymaking that was not anticipated in 1982. Nevertheless, there is not necessarily a tyranny of the Charter, in which security policy is dictated by the Charter. The Charter is most often applied against the actions of unelected police and prosecutors as opposed to elected legislatures. Even when laws are struck down under the Charter, the result has often been vigorous dialogue between courts and legislatures. There is no incompatibility between strong courts enforcing the Charter and strong governments implementing proactive criminal justice and security policies. The Charter should only smooth the sharp edges of broader criminal justice and security policy. Canada is doing a better job in developing a coherent and proactive security policy than a coherent criminal justice policy, but in both cases governments should resist the temptation of limiting their vision to attempting to predict or react to the Charter decisions of the courts. "Chaoulli and universality - a timely Charter test case" by Stanley H. Hartt In the Chaoulli case, the Supreme Court decided that Quebec’s prohibition against private health insurance violated Quebec’s Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms. The decision set off “paroxysms of shock and horror,” writes Stanley Hartt, from what he terms “the single-tier lobby” on health care. Though the case was based on the unacceptability of unreasonable wait times for elective surgery, and Quebec has since passed legislation for reducing waits, for example, for eye surgery, the other provinces are a study in inaction. “Ontario,” he writes, “has gone to the mat” with a patient who went to England to receive a procedure not available in Ontario. Refused reimbursement by Ontario’s OHIP program, he has since sued, claiming his security of the person rights under section 7 of the Charter have been violated. Read on. "Parliament and the Charter of Rights: an unfinished constitutional revolution" by James B. Kelly The failure to link parliamentary reform to constitutional reform is the most glaring limitation of the “Charter revolution.” Instead of instituting parliamentary scrutiny from a rights perspective, the political response has been to govern with the Charter through central agencies at the disposal of the cabinet. With the enhanced role of the Department of Justice and the absence of parliamentary counterweights to constitutional scrutiny, Charter dialogue is dominated by the cabinet to the exclusion of Parliament. This has led to greater executive dominance and represents the most pressing aspect of the democratic deficit facing Parliament since the introduction of the Charter of Rights. "La charte de 1982 : un arbre capable de grandir et de s'adapter" by Roger Tassé Even if one should not “overemphasize the importance of the views of the people who played a role in the negotiation, drafting or adoption of the Charter,” as Roger Tassé, deputy-minister of justice at the time when the Constitution was patriated, himself notes, he recalls here the two big questions that preoccupied him at the time: how to ensure that the Charter was given a generous, liberal interpretation, and to what extent should rights and liberties be immutable? A personal perspective on a pivotal period in our history. Book Excerpt: The Washington Diaries: 1981-1989 by Allan Gotlieb Allan Gotlieb was Canada’s ambassador to Washington during the Reagan presidency, from 1981 to 1989. Appointed by Pierre Trudeau, he remained at his post under Brian Mulroney. As he writes in this excerpt from his evocative memoir, The Washington Diaries: “I am especially pleased about being from a country that can switch allegiance between political leaders so diametrically different from one another, yet both authentically Canadian.” Here, he covers the arrival of a new prime minister in 1984, the refurbishing of Canada-US relations beginning with Mulroney’s Economic Club speech in New York, the Reagan-Mulroney summits in Quebec City and Ottawa, and the nail-biting conclusion of the free trade talks in Washington in 1987. Book Review: Michael Hart and Bill Dymond review The Washington Diaries: 1981-1989 by Allan Gotlieb [summary not available] "Les années avec guide" by Alain Noël [summary not available] |
