How close did Trudeau come to destroying Canada?

Snippets from an excellent article by Robert Sibley:

What about official bilingualism and multiculturalism? Both are widely regarded as bedrock Canadian "values."...

But there are others who say such policies have fragmented the country to the point where to speak of a national identity is an oxymoron. "Multiculturalism does little more than affirm our commitment to moral and ethical relativism," says law professor Robert Martin. "That is, it affirms that we stand for precisely nothing."..

As political scientist and constitutional expert Peter Russell explains, what is in question "is not the actual Charter but the Charter as a political icon and Charter worship as a misguided political fundamentalism that renders the Charter a source of disunity in Canada." In his essay "The Political Purposes of the Charter," Russell argues that the "negative side" of the Charter has been the transferring of policy-making "from the legislative to the judicial arena." Such a transfer "represents a further flight from politics, a deepening disillusionment with the procedures of representative government and government by discussion as (the) means of resolving fundamental questions of political justice."

Other critics say a "Court Party" -- radical feminists, civil libertarians, social and environmental activists and academics -- has used the Charter to serve its narrow interests, seeking through litigation and media pressure to effect social changes it cannot achieve by democratic means. While the Court Party might insist they are out to protect rights, the real consequence is the usurpation of government-by-consent with government-by-coercion.

"Issues that should be subject to the flux of government by discussion are presented as beyond legitimate debate, with the partisans claiming the right to permanent victory," write F.L. Morton and Rainer Knopf in The Charter Revolution & The Court Party. "In short, court rulings replace parliamentary votes. The result, ultimately, is an increasingly divided political culture in which political opponents regard each other less as fellow citizens and more as competing interest groups."..

Even judges have become social engineers, say the critics, using the Charter to reshape Canadian society to suit their own image. Law professor Robert Martin, in his book The Most Dangerous Branch, argues that in the wake of the Charter, Canada's Supreme Court judges now make social policy that legislators fear to challenge. Such activism usurps the tradition of parliamentary supremacy and offends fundamental principles of democracy because the judges were never elected to make social policy. "Canada," he declares, "may be the first country in the world to have experienced a judicial coup d'etat."..

...the fact remains that Trudeau entered federal politics to destroy Quebec nationalism and enhance Quebecers' attachment to Canada. Nearly 25 years later, while the "Charter Canadians" identity has sunk deep roots in English-speaking Canada, Quebecers remain estranged from the rest of Canada in terms of their constitutional allegiances and their notions of political community...

Mark C.

Posted by markc at June 4, 2006 03:13 PM