History notwithstanding...
It's sad how little I know about Canada's political history, all those fourth-grade history lessons having fallen through various dark cracks in my skull. But Anthony Westell jogs my memory with a history lesson on the notwithstanding clause:
In reality, it was the essential compromise that made it possible for Pierre Trudeau and nine of the 10 premiers -- Quebec was the holdout -- to approve the package "patriating" from Britain the basic constitution, the BNA Act, by which the British Parliament had established Confederation, and adding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Up to that point, Canada had been a parliamentary democracy -- Parliament was the supreme authority and the courts were deferential, except on rare occasions. The Charter, however, set out rights that were to be beyond the power of Parliament to change. In the first draft, the Supreme Court of Canada was to have absolute authority to define those rights in practice.
The court, for example, could interpret the Charter to guarantee the right to abortion -- although the word never appears in the document -- and there was nothing Parliament could have done about it, even had it wished to do so.
Mr. Trudeau, the principal author of the Charter, was a political theorist and had studied in the United States and France, where this form of government prevails, and he was happy to make a fundamental change in the Canadian system. But several of the premiers raised in the British parliamentary tradition were uneasy to the point at which they would not approve the package. The compromise was to add a clause providing that Parliament and legislatures could adopt a special procedure that would override the Supreme Court.
So Martin was really invoking his Trudeauist roots, no? The thing is, if not even Trudeau could pull it off, it's not likely Martin ever could.
In other need-a-martini-to-start-the-day news, if the Tories are surging in Quebec, is the proper liberal stance to root for them to steal seats from the Bloc or does not instead root for the party that wants to rip the country apart to stop the right-wing assault? Liberal policy confined to Quebec doesn't really help the rest of us, does it? (That was Martin's best point in the debate last night, btw.)
Groan.
In reality, it was the essential compromise that made it possible for Pierre Trudeau and nine of the 10 premiers -- Quebec was the holdout -- to approve the package "patriating" from Britain the basic constitution, the BNA Act, by which the British Parliament had established Confederation, and adding the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Up to that point, Canada had been a parliamentary democracy -- Parliament was the supreme authority and the courts were deferential, except on rare occasions. The Charter, however, set out rights that were to be beyond the power of Parliament to change. In the first draft, the Supreme Court of Canada was to have absolute authority to define those rights in practice.
The court, for example, could interpret the Charter to guarantee the right to abortion -- although the word never appears in the document -- and there was nothing Parliament could have done about it, even had it wished to do so.
Mr. Trudeau, the principal author of the Charter, was a political theorist and had studied in the United States and France, where this form of government prevails, and he was happy to make a fundamental change in the Canadian system. But several of the premiers raised in the British parliamentary tradition were uneasy to the point at which they would not approve the package. The compromise was to add a clause providing that Parliament and legislatures could adopt a special procedure that would override the Supreme Court.
So Martin was really invoking his Trudeauist roots, no? The thing is, if not even Trudeau could pull it off, it's not likely Martin ever could.
In other need-a-martini-to-start-the-day news, if the Tories are surging in Quebec, is the proper liberal stance to root for them to steal seats from the Bloc or does not instead root for the party that wants to rip the country apart to stop the right-wing assault? Liberal policy confined to Quebec doesn't really help the rest of us, does it? (That was Martin's best point in the debate last night, btw.)
Groan.
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