ROYER: The real legacy of Pierre Trudeau’s Constitution — judges, not voters, now shape Canada

Randy Royer is an Albertan, entrepreneur, and author.When the heck did our democracy become a co-ruling arrangement with the indigenous? The court decision that the Independence Referendum could not go ahead without indigenous consultation effectively says that our democracy has now effectively become a co-ruling arrangement. When did that happen? The answer is April 17, 1982. That is the day that we, the citizens of Canada, lost the right to control our own democracy. Control was handed to the judges. The judges have now determined that, despite there being no mention of co-ruling in the treaties (signed in the 1870s), it is the law. What happened on that day? Canada became a constitutional republic, with parliamentary trappings.Trudeau and the premiers took our basic right to determine our own future away and turned it over to the judges. The fundamental belief in equal sovereignty of all individuals (inherited in the treaties) was no longer protected by 700 years of British evolutionary democracy. And what can we do about it? Ask another set of judges for their opinion? Right!British Columbia faces the same issue. There, the courts have decided that land ownership as designated in the fee-simple land title structure is, in the same way, subject to co-ownership. The unprecedented ruling is leading to all non-treaty land being co-owned, on one side by the province and the person or entity identified in the land title office and whatever indigenous that claims a superior title. Those folks who were led to believe that they had sole, unfettered ownership will have a new partner if they wish to refinance and sell what they thought was their home. .The two biggest problems with judicial supremacy and judicial advocacy (the names for the above) are: Judges are not responsible for the mess that they create, and we have no way to change said mess. Trudeau’s 1982 Constitution not only took away our right to define our own democracy, but it also took away the protection of land ownership and, in Section 35 (3), required recognized indigenous ownership on settled or future claims. The courts have morphed that into co-ownership of the land and into co-governance of our democracy. Don’t blame the indigenous; they are just getting what they can. Don’t blame the judges; they are just reading the Constitution and basing their judgments on what it says. Blame ourselves. We have slept through the abrogation of our fundamental rights, pacified by the marketing piece that Trudeau’s constitution was just a simple repatriation. The real culprit in this drama is Trudeau and the constitution that he foisted upon us, without our consent, and of course, ourselves for getting duped.We lost the right of land ownership, our rights went from absolute to conditional (which in our strictly partisan national government means ‘at the discretion of the prime minister’), we no longer have equality (as evidenced by these rulings) of people or provinces, and it is all unchangeable. Most egregious of all, we lost the right for all of us, equally, to control our democracy. Is there nothing we can do? Are we simply helpless to the whims of the court and whatever prime minister the East elects?No. We can educate ourselves on what Trudeau did to us, and demand to have our democracy back. Real action we can take, but it requires thoughtful, informed consideration.Randy Royer is an Albertan, entrepreneur, and author.

ROYER: The real legacy of Pierre Trudeau’s Constitution — judges, not voters, now shape Canada

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