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Canadians have no rights that the government can't override, unlike the US where the Constitution grants God-given rights over and above the government. Pierre

Canadians have no rights that the government can't override, unlike the US where the Constitution grants God-given rights over and above the government. Pierre Trudeau built in a safeguard so that the Canadian government or provinces can override whatever rights they want as they deem fit. They also have the War Measures Act or the Emergencies Act which they've also used to override any rights that Canadians have. But none of that matters if Canadians just allow politicians to impose laws that strip them of their rights to avoid mass surveillance. Who needs a Charter of Rights if Canadians don't care enough about their rights to protest the government when they try to strip away their rights?

dleslie 7mo ago
While it's true that Section 33 of the Charter can override other sections, it cannot override _all_ of them; and the Emergencies Act is roughly equivalent in effect to the USA's ability to deploy the National Guard. It allows the Federal Government to deploy our military to handle emergencies when it is apparent that Provincial and local services are unable to handle them.
- freediddy 7mo ago
  No. The Emergencies act/War Measures act allows the government to override whatever rights they want. And it's been used twice in history to do exactly that. What it's supposed to be for is in direct contrast to what it was used for, which is to suspect rights. And that's exactly what was determined later on by the courts that they did infringe on the rights of Canadians.
  - dleslie 7mo ago
    It really doesn't allow _any_ rights to be overridden. It's rather clear in its scope,[0] and while it's true that our justice system has taken the Government to task when it has exceeded the scope[1] it's not as though this is a regular occurrence or that those harmed by the excess are without legal recourse. 0: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/page-1.html https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/page-1.html 1: https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/trans/bm-mb/other-autre/emergencies3-urgence3/qa-qr.html https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/trans/bm-mb/other-autre/emerge...
    - freediddy 7mo ago
      How was Trudeau held accountable besides a small slap on the wrist? And regardless the Notwithstanding clause is more than enough to extinguish anything in the CoR.
      - perfect-blue 7mo ago
        This gets at the concept of accountability for those at the top of government. This is an issue in all governments, not just in Canada. A good parallel would be the United States. The list of actions the current administration has taken which have been determined illegal is astounding, yet no one is held accountable in a way that would deter future breaches of the law.
      - dleslie 7mo ago
        Trudeau became so desperately unpopular that he was compelled to step down. As for legal responsibility and repercussions, that's a process that is still in motion. The law moves slowly in Canada.
- joshlemer 7mo ago
  It's not just the Notwithstanding clause. There's a general judicial tradition in Canada of utterly ignoring or dismissing or excusing blatant, objective violations of the constitution itself. Some examples: 1. in Cambie Surgeries Corporation v British Columbia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambie_Surgeries_Corporation_v_British_Columbia#Appeal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambie_Surgeries_Corporation_v...), where a private clinic challenged the province's ban on any private care whatsoever for procedures that are provided by the public system on the grounds that if the province bans procedures but then also rations access to those procedures to the point that they're inaccessible for many patients, it constitutes a violation of our charter right to life and equal protection. It seems they were able to successfully argue that this does constitute a violation of our rights, but the decision says it's okay because it's done with the intent to preserve the equitable access to healthcare for the general public. 2. Employees in union shops are forced to join the union. This is arguably a violation of our right to freedom of association, but the supreme court says that it's okay if it does because "the objective of this violation is to promote industrial peace through the encouragement of free collective bargaining". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rand_formula#Freedom_of_association_issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rand_formula#Freedom_of_associ... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Comeau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Comeau, a famous case where a guy bought beer in Quebec and drove it to New Brunswick (for personal consumption) and was fined. His case argued that that's a violation of section 121 of the Canadian Constitution 1867 which states as black and white as can be: 121 All Articles of the Growth, Produce, or Manufacture of any one of the Provinces shall, from and after the Union, be admitted free into each of the other Provinces. But the Supreme court ruled that it's not enough for provinces to ban goods from entering their province for it to count as a violation, it must be a ban which has no other purpose but to impede interprovincial trade. But that means that this section is completely useless because a justification for protectionism can always be found or made up on an ad-hoc basis. Basically, Canadians have no rights whatsoever. Our entire legal system doesn't sit on anything fundamental it's all just vibes and arbitrary whims of the justices of the day. Our charter and constitution are so full of explicit holes like the notwithstanding clause, that they're rendered almost meaningless even on their own terms, and then any other violations will be excused on the flimsiest grounds.
  - 7mo ago
JimmaDaRustla 7mo ago
Ya, how's that constitution concept working out for the USA?
- freediddy 7mo ago
  The difference between the US and every other country in the world is that in other countries, citizens believe they are given rights by their government, whereas Americans believe their rights are God-given and protect them from their government. The distinction is very different and powerful.
  - sodacanner 7mo ago
    The belief of 'where' your rights come from has very little impact on reality - and in reality, it's the government (those that control the police, military) that grant you any rights whatsoever. The distinction between where your rights come from doesn't matter much when the people in power are willing to trample them either way.
    - freediddy 7mo ago
      You're wrong. The Constitution is there to limit the government, not the other way around. And Americans are very willing to stand up to defend their rights. Regardless of which way you lean politically everything we have seen in the last year in terms of political activism are people using their God-given rights as Americans.
      - sodacanner 7mo ago
        The constitution isn't some divine sacrament that they'll respect any more than the laws being rewritten in other countries. They'll step over it all the same when the time comes.
  - catlover76 7mo ago
    [dead]
  - 7mo ago
Defletter 7mo ago
Except that's not really true, is it? It may be the flavour-text of US tradition that the government is protecting your rights rather than bestowing them, but the outcome is the same. Nor is the US government particularly fastidious about protecting them: one need only ask the average person of colour whether they feel equally protected under the law. It is your Declaration of Independence that recognises inalienable rights endowed by one's creator, not the Constitution, and is thus legally unenforceable. We know this because none of the rights enshrined in the Constitution are actually inalienable. For example: the First Amendment says that Congress can make no law prohibiting the right to peacefully assemble... but then how does federal incarceration work? The US has one of the largest mass-surveillance apparatuses in the world despite the Fourth Amendment. The President has also attempted to end birthright citizenship via decree, something which your Supreme Court is currently entertaining instead of immediately overturning as patently unconstitutional. There's a common refrain that rights do not exist without remedies. Whether rights are given by one's deity or by one's government is immaterial: if you cannot remedy a violation of a right, that right does not exist. While I can certainly agree that certain systems do not entrench rights as much as they should (here in the UK, all our rights persist at the whims of a simple majority), words on a page matter less than access to remedies.
- piekvorst 7mo ago
  Any president can go insane and go against the country’s principles. Nobody is perfectly safe from that. The issue with the constitution and declaration is intellectual: it takes centuries to completely override them. And when the president does go insane, you have the whole intellectual apparatus working against him. It is something, not just a nonexistent “remedy.”
  - Defletter 7mo ago
    > it takes centuries to completely override them. To completely override them? Sure, but that's an odd criterion since one of the US's biggest issues is the unequal protection of rights. I have never seen a society so rhetorically obsessed with individual rights and freedoms, and yet so submissive to authoritarianism that failure to "just comply" is enough to justify summary execution in the streets (eg: Alex Pretti and Renée Good). Again, this post is about Canada attempting to pass a bill to facilitate mass surveillance, which "freediddy" (yikes name btw) responded to by expounding upon the loftiness of American constitutional rights, as if America is not one of the most extreme mass surveillance states. It's as if Canada's attempt to pass the bill is more offensive than the mass surveillance itself, ie, it's just virtue theatre.
krsw 7mo ago
>unlike the US where the Constitution grants God-given rights over and above the government. Why don't you ask the folks in towns riddled with ICE agents how well those god-given rights are being respected. Your main point stands about infringement of freedoms and privacy, but your interpretation, or hallucination that anywhere is actually abiding by their founding principals is wildly naive. The government will always override it's citizens rights and freedoms if it has it's power challenged. 2nd amendment collapsed in California when Black Panthers decided arming themselves was a great way to push back on kkkops. 1st and 14th amendment rights get trampled and attacked at just about any protest in history. You can talk about ideals until your blue in the face but governments have always done whatever they want and almost never face repercussion. Anything that challenges the government keeping us in place as servants of capital is met with violence and incarceration. Any social progress comes at the cost of innocent blood being spilled to make the situation distasteful enough that the government minimally acquiesces as it keeps marching down the same path it always has.
cswind 7mo ago
> the Constitution grants God-given rights over and above the government. Which are they: God-given or granted by the constitution? No-one in any country has rights that cannot be taken away. I'm not sure why you are holding the US as a shining example here. There has been a long history of warrantless searches everyone knows about. And why are you making false claims about the Canadian constitution? You can easily check that the scope of the notwithstanding clause is limited.

dleslie 7mo ago

While it's true that Section 33 of the Charter can override other sections, it cannot override _all_ of them; and the Emergencies Act is roughly equivalent in effect to the USA's ability to deploy the National Guard. It allows the Federal Government to deploy our military to handle emergencies when it is apparent that Provincial and local services are unable to handle them.

freediddy 7mo ago
No. The Emergencies act/War Measures act allows the government to override whatever rights they want. And it's been used twice in history to do exactly that. What it's supposed to be for is in direct contrast to what it was used for, which is to suspect rights. And that's exactly what was determined later on by the courts that they did infringe on the rights of Canadians.
- dleslie 7mo ago
  It really doesn't allow _any_ rights to be overridden. It's rather clear in its scope,[0] and while it's true that our justice system has taken the Government to task when it has exceeded the scope[1] it's not as though this is a regular occurrence or that those harmed by the excess are without legal recourse. 0: https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/page-1.html https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/e-4.5/page-1.html 1: https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/trans/bm-mb/other-autre/emergencies3-urgence3/qa-qr.html https://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/trans/bm-mb/other-autre/emerge...
  - freediddy 7mo ago
    How was Trudeau held accountable besides a small slap on the wrist? And regardless the Notwithstanding clause is more than enough to extinguish anything in the CoR.
    - perfect-blue 7mo ago
      This gets at the concept of accountability for those at the top of government. This is an issue in all governments, not just in Canada. A good parallel would be the United States. The list of actions the current administration has taken which have been determined illegal is astounding, yet no one is held accountable in a way that would deter future breaches of the law.
    - dleslie 7mo ago
      Trudeau became so desperately unpopular that he was compelled to step down. As for legal responsibility and repercussions, that's a process that is still in motion. The law moves slowly in Canada.
joshlemer 7mo ago
It's not just the Notwithstanding clause. There's a general judicial tradition in Canada of utterly ignoring or dismissing or excusing blatant, objective violations of the constitution itself. Some examples: 1. in Cambie Surgeries Corporation v British Columbia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambie_Surgeries_Corporation_v_British_Columbia#Appeal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambie_Surgeries_Corporation_v...), where a private clinic challenged the province's ban on any private care whatsoever for procedures that are provided by the public system on the grounds that if the province bans procedures but then also rations access to those procedures to the point that they're inaccessible for many patients, it constitutes a violation of our charter right to life and equal protection. It seems they were able to successfully argue that this does constitute a violation of our rights, but the decision says it's okay because it's done with the intent to preserve the equitable access to healthcare for the general public. 2. Employees in union shops are forced to join the union. This is arguably a violation of our right to freedom of association, but the supreme court says that it's okay if it does because "the objective of this violation is to promote industrial peace through the encouragement of free collective bargaining". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rand_formula#Freedom_of_association_issue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rand_formula#Freedom_of_associ... 3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Comeau https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Comeau, a famous case where a guy bought beer in Quebec and drove it to New Brunswick (for personal consumption) and was fined. His case argued that that's a violation of section 121 of the Canadian Constitution 1867 which states as black and white as can be: 121 All Articles of the Growth, Produce, or Manufacture of any one of the Provinces shall, from and after the Union, be admitted free into each of the other Provinces. But the Supreme court ruled that it's not enough for provinces to ban goods from entering their province for it to count as a violation, it must be a ban which has no other purpose but to impede interprovincial trade. But that means that this section is completely useless because a justification for protectionism can always be found or made up on an ad-hoc basis. Basically, Canadians have no rights whatsoever. Our entire legal system doesn't sit on anything fundamental it's all just vibes and arbitrary whims of the justices of the day. Our charter and constitution are so full of explicit holes like the notwithstanding clause, that they're rendered almost meaningless even on their own terms, and then any other violations will be excused on the flimsiest grounds.
- 7mo ago

JimmaDaRustla 7mo ago

Ya, how's that constitution concept working out for the USA?

freediddy 7mo ago
The difference between the US and every other country in the world is that in other countries, citizens believe they are given rights by their government, whereas Americans believe their rights are God-given and protect them from their government. The distinction is very different and powerful.
- sodacanner 7mo ago
  The belief of 'where' your rights come from has very little impact on reality - and in reality, it's the government (those that control the police, military) that grant you any rights whatsoever. The distinction between where your rights come from doesn't matter much when the people in power are willing to trample them either way.
  - freediddy 7mo ago
    You're wrong. The Constitution is there to limit the government, not the other way around. And Americans are very willing to stand up to defend their rights. Regardless of which way you lean politically everything we have seen in the last year in terms of political activism are people using their God-given rights as Americans.
    - sodacanner 7mo ago
      The constitution isn't some divine sacrament that they'll respect any more than the laws being rewritten in other countries. They'll step over it all the same when the time comes.
- catlover76 7mo ago
  [dead]
- 7mo ago

Defletter 7mo ago

Except that's not really true, is it? It may be the flavour-text of US tradition that the government is protecting your rights rather than bestowing them, but the outcome is the same. Nor is the US government particularly fastidious about protecting them: one need only ask the average person of colour whether they feel equally protected under the law. It is your Declaration of Independence that recognises inalienable rights endowed by one's creator, not the Constitution, and is thus legally unenforceable. We know this because none of the rights enshrined in the Constitution are actually inalienable. For example: the First Amendment says that Congress can make no law prohibiting the right to peacefully assemble... but then how does federal incarceration work? The US has one of the largest mass-surveillance apparatuses in the world despite the Fourth Amendment. The President has also attempted to end birthright citizenship via decree, something which your Supreme Court is currently entertaining instead of immediately overturning as patently unconstitutional. There's a common refrain that rights do not exist without remedies. Whether rights are given by one's deity or by one's government is immaterial: if you cannot remedy a violation of a right, that right does not exist. While I can certainly agree that certain systems do not entrench rights as much as they should (here in the UK, all our rights persist at the whims of a simple majority), words on a page matter less than access to remedies.

piekvorst 7mo ago
Any president can go insane and go against the country’s principles. Nobody is perfectly safe from that. The issue with the constitution and declaration is intellectual: it takes centuries to completely override them. And when the president does go insane, you have the whole intellectual apparatus working against him. It is something, not just a nonexistent “remedy.”
- Defletter 7mo ago
  > it takes centuries to completely override them. To completely override them? Sure, but that's an odd criterion since one of the US's biggest issues is the unequal protection of rights. I have never seen a society so rhetorically obsessed with individual rights and freedoms, and yet so submissive to authoritarianism that failure to "just comply" is enough to justify summary execution in the streets (eg: Alex Pretti and Renée Good). Again, this post is about Canada attempting to pass a bill to facilitate mass surveillance, which "freediddy" (yikes name btw) responded to by expounding upon the loftiness of American constitutional rights, as if America is not one of the most extreme mass surveillance states. It's as if Canada's attempt to pass the bill is more offensive than the mass surveillance itself, ie, it's just virtue theatre.

krsw 7mo ago

>unlike the US where the Constitution grants God-given rights over and above the government. Why don't you ask the folks in towns riddled with ICE agents how well those god-given rights are being respected. Your main point stands about infringement of freedoms and privacy, but your interpretation, or hallucination that anywhere is actually abiding by their founding principals is wildly naive. The government will always override it's citizens rights and freedoms if it has it's power challenged. 2nd amendment collapsed in California when Black Panthers decided arming themselves was a great way to push back on kkkops. 1st and 14th amendment rights get trampled and attacked at just about any protest in history. You can talk about ideals until your blue in the face but governments have always done whatever they want and almost never face repercussion. Anything that challenges the government keeping us in place as servants of capital is met with violence and incarceration. Any social progress comes at the cost of innocent blood being spilled to make the situation distasteful enough that the government minimally acquiesces as it keeps marching down the same path it always has.

cswind 7mo ago

> the Constitution grants God-given rights over and above the government. Which are they: God-given or granted by the constitution? No-one in any country has rights that cannot be taken away. I'm not sure why you are holding the US as a shining example here. There has been a long history of warrantless searches everyone knows about. And why are you making false claims about the Canadian constitution? You can easily check that the scope of the notwithstanding clause is limited.