Beyond The Commons

 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

The Tewksbury clause

by Aaron Wherry on Wednesday, March 3, 2010 10:31am - 37 Comments

Dale Smith, who noted the lack of reference to gay rights in the citizenship guide when the guide was released, rounds up reaction to yesterday’s revelation.

“It’s becoming more and more clear that the Conservatives did not intend this to be a Canadian citizenship guide, but instead a Conservative citizenship guide,” says gay Liberal MP Scott Brison. ”Canada’s Charter of Rights has helped make Canada one of the most progressive societies in the world and a magnet for those seeking equality. The Charter is not a buffet. You can’t take from it the rights you like and ignore the rest.”

For the record, the portion of the citizenship guide that covers the Charter reads as follows.

The Constitution of Canada was amended in 1982 to entrench the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which begins with the words, “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.” This phrase underlines the importance of religious traditions to Canadian society and the dignity and worth of the human person.

The Charter attempts to summarize fundamental freedoms while also setting out additional rights. The most important of these include:

• Mobility Rights – Canadians can live and work anywhere they choose in Canada, enter and leave the country freely, and apply for a passport.

• Aboriginal Peoples’ Rights – The rights guaranteed in the Charter will not adversely affect any treaty or other rights or freedoms of Aboriginal peoples.

• Official Language Rights and Minority Language Educational Rights – French and English have equal status in Parliament and throughout the government.

• Multiculturalism – A fundamental characteristic of the Canadian heritage and identity. Canadians celebrate the gift of one another’s presence and work hard to respect pluralism and live in harmony.

This is followed by a subsection on “the equality of women and men” that reads as so.

In Canada, men and women are equal under the law. Canada’s openness and generosity do not extend to barbaric cultural practices that tolerate spousal abuse, “honour killings,” female genital mutilation or other gender-based violence. Those guilty of these crimes are severely punished under Canada’s criminal laws.

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  • http://intensedebate.com/people/NorthernPoV NorthernPoV

    I think that a fundamental part of "the hidden agenda" has been revealed!

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Stewart_Smith Stewart_Smith

      perhaps you mean fundamentalist

  • http://twitter.com/Akiracee @Akiracee

    Anything in that guide about how burning Atheists is bad?

    • burlivespipe

      I missed the clause where "speeches and ideas of an Australian origin" are also protected by the charter…

      • Bill

        ???????????

  • OnTheJob

    Immigrants should also be warned that referring to a third party homosexualist as a "fifi" in a private conversation is subject to a fine of a thousand bucks plus court costs.

    In theory, the Charter guarantees and enumerates freedoms of conscience, thought, opinion, belief, expression, peaceful assembly, and association, meaning that one should in theory be free to hate gays, express that sentiment, and refuse to have anything to do with them. In practice, it doesn't, at all. It is a fraud.

    Gay entitlements weren't enumerated of course in the original charter, but "read in" by an activist judiciary – literally pulled out of thin air. If they were fundamental entitlements, they would be enumerated. Mobility rights in a country which allows provinces to run their own immigration programs would seem a joke.

    The subsection at the end is creepy. Since when do Canadian government organizations refer to other cultural practices as barbaric – I mean besides Steve Paikin calling conservatives barbarians during a nationally televised leaders debate – and since when do we punish anything (other than the use of the word fifi) severely in Canada? Male genital mutilation still seems ticketyboo, despite the CMA recommending against it – see what I mean about feminist "super-rights" in Canada trumping everything else, even medical advice?

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/jolyon jolyon

    "The Charter is not a buffet. You can’t take from it the rights you like and ignore the rest.”

    I agree with Brison, in theory, that Charter should not be buffet. In practice, that's exactly what it is and Libs played significant role in making it that way.

    Section 2 of Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

    2. Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:

    (a) freedom of conscience and religion;
    (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
    (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
    (d) freedom of association.

    And yet Liberals are fans of hate crimes, support human rights councils and trample all over our Fundamental Freedoms. Please spare us the sanctimony about charter rights, Libs. There is no caveat in Charter about how it's ok for Charter rights to be erased or ignored as long as it falls within liberal shibboleths.

    • Mike T.

      anti-hate speech laws are perfectly acceptable restrictions on Charter rights as allowed by the Charter itself.

      How often must this be pointed out?

      • http://intensedebate.com/people/jolyon jolyon

        Maybe you should point it out to Brison.

        Who said anything about hate laws being illegal? Brison is the one whinging about Charter is not a buffet when that's exactly what it is. Some ethnic groups and genders are more equal than others.

        • http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

          Er, the foundational principle of the rule of law is that all persons are equal before and under the law, and receive equal protection from it.

          Hate speech falls under the "these rights are subject to reasonable limits" etc in the Charter; if only I was up on my SCC rulings I'd have a couple to cite for you there.

          Now, if we're not actually fulfilling that rule of law, that's one thing (and it ought be corrected). But the convention is most certainly applicable to Canada.

          • http://intensedebate.com/people/jolyon jolyon

            "The native occupation at Caledonia is the gift that keeps on giving, the OPP and Queen's Park learned yesterday when an Ontario Superior Court judge certified a class-action lawsuit."

            http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/judg…

            "The logic is impressively brazen: Since the anti-Israel people might use violence, the speech of the pro-Israel people must be limited. On the other hand, since the pro-Israel people do not use violence, the speech of the anti-Israel people can proceed without restraint.

            http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/fullcomm…

            "Critics say a York Region policy of using tax dollars to subsidize housing restricted to members of certain ethnic and religious groups is discriminatory and condones a form of segregation."

            http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/767916–h…

            "The Opposition should be "ashamed of themselves" for questioning why flying the Canadian flag near the site of a long-running aboriginal occupation in Caledonia is being treated as a criminal act by government agents, Community Safety Minister Rick Bartolucci said yesterday."

            http://www.thespec.com/article/727333

            "the foundational principle of the rule of law is that all persons are equal before and under the law" I agree with that statement but it's too bad we don't practice it in Canada.

        • Richard

          such as?

        • Mike T.

          The stuff about hate crimes was a misreading of your post, I thought you said meant hate speech laws.]

          Now I have no idea what your talking about. Please don't feel like you have to enlighten me.

    • burlivespipe

      I could just respond by replacing 'Liberals' with 'CONs' but when joylon is now using tinfoil to stuff his/her ears with, it appears fighting the propaganda machine is futile.

  • Standing By

    It takes a special kind of leadership to produce a Citizenship Guide that will foster disunity.

  • http://twitter.com/Akiracee @Akiracee

    Well, this is a *Canadian* Citizenship Guide after all.

  • catherine

    principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.” This phrase underlines the importance of religious traditions to Canadian society

    That is quite an interpretation – I wonder, specifically, whose interpretation it is. I think many Canadians agreed with Trudeau that any god that might exist could not care less if he or she is named in Canada's constitution, but it was put in because some religious groups felt strongly enough about it and the rest of us can simply ignore it. It is still legal to be an atheist in Canada.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

      Well, if we don't take into account our First Nations peoples, early settlers and their descendants (as well as most immigrants until the mid-20th century) were of Christian descent (of varying denominations, but Christian nonetheless). As well, in modelling our own constitutional amendments after the US and British documents (primarily, there were other sources as well), acknowledgement of God maintained that pattern.

      What I wonder is what happened to the clauses about peace, order, and good government. This has always struck me as a more noteworthy point than a "we have a supreme God" clause, if only because of its uniqueness in content (but not in structure; cp Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness).

      • http://intensedebate.com/people/Thwim Thwim

        I would suggest replacing that first "if" with a "because"

        • http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

          Fair. And I probably would, were I able to edit my own post…

      • Lawrence A. Oshanek

        POGG is in the preamble of s.91 of the Constitution Act, 1867 (Old BNA – renamed by PET – another Liberal attempt at revisionism) and it refers to the ability of the feds to made laws for the peace, order and good government of Canada.

        Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is covered by s.7 of the Charter (which is an scheduled amendment to the Constitution Act, 1867) as:

        7. Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

        Section 7 is a legal right – that means, a right belonging to you in your interactions with government actors, not me.

        Happiness is not guaranteed to us here in Canada – just read the posts! Apparently, most people here have a constitutional right to be unhappy. L M (_!_) Off or Is there ever any way to make a Liberal happy?

        I wonder if atheists have a reason to not wanting to be burned? ….. Just asking!

  • Anon001

    Jason Kenney is an idiot, a heavier version of Polievre, if you will. Why waste time discussing that turd-blossom?

    • Joops

      Because unlike Poilievre, Kenney actually has power and he is using it to do very bad things. Poilievre just says bad things. Kenney gets to run with it.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

    On a tangential note, Mark Tewksbury hasn't seen this much headline space since he forgot his trunks at the Commonwealth Games. (or was it the Pan Am games? I can't remember).

  • Not a Believer

    Really, religion is important to Canadians? They why are the churches empty and many are closing? Perhaps it is important to the superstitious few who think that they will be saved because they say that they believe. I don't believe for a second that Stephen Harper believes in God. He would be more compassionate and caring about those who were not born with the good fortune of health or wealth. He has cynically surrounded himself by the believers to gain power and now they are there in Parliament and caucus with him making policy and laws that don't reflect a country of people who used to be QUIETLY proud of what they achieved and not in your face arrogant flag wavers. The Stephen Harper government is making Canada appear more and more like 1930s Germany than the place I was born. SCARY.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

      The Stephen Harper government is making Canada appear more and more like 1930s Germany than the place I was born. SCARY.

      The scary thing is that people are so ignorant about history that they think comparisons like this one make sense.

      • http://intensedebate.com/people/SamDavies SamDavies

        Yes – and no. There most certainly are lots of similarities. This does not automatically translate to the same end result that befell Germany. I think it is a shame that so many people automatically disregard lessons from history simply because they assume it is an over-dramatic comparison. With that said, this has become the case because so many people have abused the comparison to the point here it has become taboo. Hitler is totally laughing at us from his grave, knowing full well how much power his actions still hold over us in present times.

  • Patchouli

    I think it's more insidious than I did yesterday. Have you heard that several guests to the Olympics have requested refugee status here in Canada, most famously two Japanese — Kenney has fallen over himself saying that Japan is a democracy, and there is no way they can be considered refugess to Canada…

    However, apparently the Japanese are openly gay, which is a bad deal for them in Japan (apparently).

    I think the government's ideology means they don't want to show Canada as a safe and attractive place for gays and lesbians — that's why they left it out.

    I realize I sound very conspiracy minded.

    • http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

      It's absurd that anyone from Japan would request refugee status in Canada.

      • Not a Believer

        How do you know? I'll bet you are not a free thinker because they have a very difficult time in Japan. May be you should do a little learning before you comment.

        • http://intensedebate.com/people/Crit_Reasoning Crit_Reasoning

          When there are so many legitimate refugees in the world from war-torn third world countries like Sudan, I am absolutely disgusted that bogus claimants from wealthy, tolerant Western democracies like Japan would dare to request refugee status in Canada.

          • Patchouli

            I think that's the point: Japan is not tolerant to gays. Perhaps sexual orientation is not considered a human right there?

      • Wallace Cleaver

        I understand children in Japan are forced to eat tofu. What better grounds for refugee status could there be?

    • Sigh

      Perhaps more to the point, why is the Immigration Minister expressing an opinion on a refugee claim before it has even been considered? Am I the only one seeing a problem with this?

  • whitewolf

    multiculturalism as a POLICY for this country is not well received in canada, nor should it be

    • http://www.realcolorwheel.com/ Don Jusko

      I totally agree, it sounds like Canada is on the way to one world government which it shouldn’t be.

  • http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

    1. Wow, there's a lot more missing from this Charter section than I originally thought. Not to mention, the Charter itself is about our only example of successful constitutional reform – and as such, plays an important role in Canada's history, as well as our current social structure. Would have thought that would be recognized.

    2. "Those guilty of these crimes are severely punished under Canada’s criminal laws."

    Well, no, not really.

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