Once upon a time, in a country called Canada, people lived in a society that valued freedom. They could believe what they wanted and say what they wanted, and even do what they wanted, provided they didn’t hurt anyone. They thought this was normal and natural.Even the government looked favourably upon freedom. Indeed, a prime minister of the time, John Diefenbaker, famously stated in the House of Commons in 1960, “I am a Canadian, a free Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who shall govern my country.”By today’s standards, some leftists might think elements of Diefenbaker’s statement reveal him to be a far-right extremist. But everything Diefenbaker said at that time was true. In 1960, Canadians enjoyed all the freedoms he espoused.The Supreme Court of Canada said so too. In a 1953 decision vindicating freedom of religion, Justice Ivan Rand noted that “freedom of speech, religion and the inviolability of the person, are original freedoms which are at once the necessary attributes and modes of self-expression of human beings and the primary conditions of their community life within a legal order.”And in a 1957 decision, Rand wrote the following about freedom of speech: “This constitutional fact is the political expression of the primary condition of social life, thought and its communication by language. Liberty in this is little less vital to man’s mind and spirit than breathing is to his physical existence. As such an inherence in the individual it is embodied in his status of citizenship.”Read the second sentence again to grasp the importance Rand put on free speech: “Liberty in this is little less vital to man’s mind and spirit than breathing is to his physical existence.”.The quotes above are from Supreme Court of Canada decisions, which demonstrate the judicial protections Canadians had in the mid-twentieth century for the kinds of freedoms described by John Diefenbaker. Back in those days, Canadians’ rights and freedoms were protected by what some scholars call an “implied bill of rights.” Canada did not have a constitutionally entrenched Bill of Rights like the United States. But our constitution of the time, the British North America Act, 1867, began by noting that the British colonies of North America wanted to be united “with a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom.” Since the citizens of the United Kingdom enjoyed various rights and freedoms carried down through history, Canadians would inherit those same rights and freedoms themselves.As University of Toronto law professor Lorraine Weinrib wrote in a 2001 academic article, “The ‘implied bill of rights’ approach combined the judicial role under the flexible British common law constitution with the judicial review authority established under Canadian federalism. There were no specified, directly enforceable constitutional rights or freedoms in either the British or the Canadian system. Nonetheless, the judges combined the two roles to create an impressive degree of judicial protection of fundamental freedoms.”Clearly, fundamental freedoms were protected.So, what went wrong? Well, along came a man named Pierre Elliott Trudeau. He became the federal justice minister in 1967 and embarked upon a project to convince Canadians that their rights and freedoms were not properly protected and therefore vulnerable. Coincidentally, he had just the solution in hand! He had written a proposal for a Charter of Rights that could be added to the constitution. Don’t you want your rights and freedoms written directly into the constitution? Of course, you do! Needless to say, rights are not absolute, so he’d need to add a phrase noting that the rights are subject to “reasonable limits” as determined by judges (most likely Liberal-appointed judges)..Trudeau got his way, and for over 40 years now, Canada has had its celebrated Charter of Rights and Freedoms.Strangely, though, many people like me who remember life before the Charter don’t sense that we have as many freedoms as we used to. In fact, some Supreme Court Charter decisions have placed limits on our freedoms. For example, in the Whatcott decision of 2013, the Court ruled that the “limitation imposed on freedom of expression” by the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code “is demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” So long as freedom of expression (if you express the wrong views).Similarly, in the Trinity Western University decision of 2018, the Court ruled that law societies could legitimately deny accreditation to the university’s law school simply because the university required students to live by a Christian moral code which included a prohibition on sexual behaviour outside of traditional marriage. Thus, freedom of religion was curtailed in the name of same-sex rights.What happened is that John Diefenbaker’s Canada of the “free Canadian” has been replaced by Pierre Trudeau’s Canada of the “Charter rights-bearing Canadian.” These are two different countries. Trudeau changed the constitution, and when the constitution is changed, the country is changed.In short, Trudeau and his Liberal supporters wrecked the country. And with the Carney government constantly pushing for laws containing various restrictions on our civil liberties, Diefenbaker’s Canada of freedom is being further and further left behind.
