The Fickle Nature of Canadian “Rights”

Despite peaceful protest and the absence of any serious crime, the truckers who protested Canada’s draconian COVID-19 mandates were nevertheless subjected to police brutality; arrest and incarceration without just cause; deprivation of property, including their trucks and bank accounts, without due process; and various prohibitions on the right to travel, to work, and to assemble. Those are hallmarks of dictatorship, and the title of dictator is justly now the mantle Justin Trudeau has earned. Americans have always regarded Canada as a parliamentary democracy in which freedom comparable to our own was protected by the rule of law, but, in fact, Canadians have never enjoyed secure protection for their rights.

In 1982, the Canadian Parliament enacted a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That Charter includes provisions that purport to recognize and protect certain fundamental liberties. For example, Section 2 (“Fundamental Freedoms”) protects “freedom of . . . expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;” “freedom of peaceful assembly;” and “freedom of association.” Moreover, Section 8 purports to protect Canadians from “unreasonable search or seizure” and Section 9 from arbitrary detention or imprisonment. Section 11 purports to ensure that every person charged with an offense has the right to be “presumed innocent until proven guilty.”

Because the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms includes those and other seemingly rights-protective provisions, many Canadians believed they were protected against actions by the Prime Minister in violation of their rights. Unfortunately for our freedom-loving friends and neighbors to the North, the reality is to the contrary, and that is, in part, due to the fact that Canadians’ rights exist by Act of Parliament, not from a written Constitution in which rights are deemed pre-political and unalienable.

BY JONATHAN W. EMORD | PJ Media