The Charter of Rights and Freedoms was signed 30 years ago Tuesday. Since then, not only has it become a national bedrock, but the Charter has replaced the American Bill of Rights as the constitutional document most emulated by other nations.“Could it be that Canada has surpassed or even supplanted the United States as a leading global exporter of constitutional law? The data suggest that the answer may be yes.” So conclude two U.S. law professors whose analysis of the declining influence of the American constitution on other nations will be published in New York University Law Review in June.
Here is a comment to the article:
Well, I can’t speak for the world and I’m not sure that the Globe and Mail can legitimately do so, but I am proud of the Charter for the simple fact that it acknowledges that Canadian citizens are something other than tools of the state.
What a welcome relief. Imagine a government that does not treat its citizens as the property of the state, cows to be milked and as instruments of foreign policy!
Read the complete article here.
Every day I feel more and more lucky about my fate of having Canada as my home. Maybe we’re the lucky ones because for many of us we gained passports to better lives. The US is like a dinosaur, and we know what happened to them when they couldn’t adapt.
Our Charter is so strong in its simplicity and so logical, humane and progressive in its administration. Let’s hope our government ensures it is used to protect the interests of Canadian citizens and residents to be protected from the attempted intrusion of a foreign government into our lives in Canada.
The Charter is one of many things which give me cause to celebrate becoming a Canadian citizen almost 40 years ago. We are truly blessed to have been welcomed by this great nation. I need to remember that the next time I’m complaining about something here.
Here is more to make you proud. This is from Global Post. (good web site btw)
Article Title: Is Canada’s Charter better than the US Constitution?
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatches/globalpost-blogs/commentary/canadas-charter-better-the-us-constitution
Any American liberal reading this might by now be making mental room, alongside an idealized version of Canadian-style health care, for a bit of cross-border Supreme Court envy. If so, that would be a more appropriate reaction, at least, than fixating on our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
For, much as it deserves respect, the document itself, even on its 30th birthday, shouldn’t be an isolated object of pride. Like the venerable US Bill of Rights, the Charter is only as sound as the judges our elected leaders choose to elevate to interpret its strictures.
If Canada’s constitutional model has indeed outstripped the American alternative, as Law and Versteeg suggest, the deeper difference will surely be found, not on parchment, but in politics.
Amen!
@just me. Thank you for this!