{"id":292938,"date":"2016-01-28T20:25:02","date_gmt":"2016-01-29T01:25:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/2016\/01\/the-charter-is-of-no-party\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T15:25:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T19:25:08","slug":"the-charter-is-of-no-party","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2016\/01\/the-charter-is-of-no-party\/","title":{"rendered":"The Charter is of no party"},"content":{"rendered":"

One does not disagree with those one admires without some trepidation. And so it is disquieting to me that I feel compelled to dissent, in part, from\u00a0Gr\u00e9goire Webber’s yesterday’s\u00a0post describing the Liberal Party of Canada as the “Charter Party.”<\/a>\u00a0Now, insofar as Prof. Webber wanted to commend Justin Trudeau and his government for taking seriously what he describes as the “promise …\u00a0to have government and Parliament actively and consciously committed to the respect, protection, and promotion of rights,” embedded in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms<\/em>, I\u00a0agree with him. Indeed, I think that Mr. Trudeau deserves credit for taking not only the Charter<\/em>, but other parts of the constitution \u2015 for example, the requirement<\/a> that the government see to it that Senators are appointed \u2015 seriously. But I am concerned by the association prof. Webber makes between the Charter<\/em> and a political party.<\/p>\n

It is true, of course, that historically the Charter is the legacy of a Liberal government. It is true too that the Liberal party has long sought\u00a0to “claim to be the Charter\u00a0<\/em>Party,” in prof. Webber’s words. Indeed, the Liberals’ competitors and opponents have often seemed\u00a0happy to let them do it \u2015 witness Stephen Harper’s alleged\u00a0hatred<\/a> for the Charter<\/em>, and the Qu\u00e9bec nationalists’ rants about the \u00ab Charte \u00e0 Trudeau<\/em> \u00bb. Still, I think that impartial observers should not allow the Liberals’ lay claim to the Charter<\/em>\u00a0as if it were their heirloom.<\/p>\n

It is not only, and not so much, because\u00a0the Liberals’ Charter<\/em>-hugging rhetoric sometimes falls short of the\u00a0reality, though we should not forget that it does. Even the Charter<\/em>-focused mandate letters that Mr. Trudeau delivered to his cabinet contain the seeds of possible constitutional violations, as I have argued here<\/a>. More importantly, however, it is because I think it dangerous to associate a part of our constitution with a political party \u2015 and that party’s changing fortunes \u2015, especially if we value that part of the constitution. As a monarchist, I was distressed by the Conservative’s ostentatious adulation\u00a0of, and indeed obsession over, the Queen, because I did not want the monarchy to become a partisan issue, to its inevitable detriment. Similarly, it is because I value the Charter<\/em> that want to resist the attempts to associate it with the Liberal Party, which, however popular it might be now, will not always remain so. When Mr. Trudeau’s approval rating falls, it should not drag down the Charter<\/em>‘s with it.<\/p>\n

Prof. Webber is right to emphasize that “that the first and most important responsibility for protecting, respecting, and promoting the rights of Canadians rests with government and Parliament.” But this responsibility, of which Charter<\/em> is the embodiment in our constitutional order, is something whereof\u00a0we ought to remind all parties that aspire to govern us. It is not just a political position that some of them may embrace and others reject. Acknowledging it is not the privilege of one, but the duty of all. As Chief Justice Rinfret once wrote<\/a>, “the constitution of Canada does not belong either to Parliament, or to the Legislatures.” Still less, I believe, does it belong to just one faction in Parliament. The constitution, the Chief Justice said, “belongs to the country and it is there that the citizens of the country will find the protection of the rights to which they are entitled.” Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One does not disagree with those one admires without some trepidation. And so it is disquieting to me that I feel compelled to dissent, in part, from\u00a0Gr\u00e9goire Webber’s yesterday’s\u00a0post describing the Liberal Party of Canada as the “Charter Party.”\u00a0Now, insofar as Prof. Webber wanted to commend Justin Trudeau and his government for taking seriously what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":913,"featured_media":292934,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"article-status":[],"irpp-category":[],"section":[],"irpp-tag":[],"class_list":["post-292938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Charter is of no party<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2016\/01\/the-charter-is-of-no-party\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"fr_FR\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Charter is of no party\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One does not disagree with those one admires without some trepidation. And so it is disquieting to me that I feel compelled to dissent, in part, from\u00a0Gr\u00e9goire Webber’s yesterday’s\u00a0post describing the Liberal Party of Canada as the “Charter Party.”\u00a0Now, insofar as Prof. Webber wanted to commend Justin Trudeau and his government for taking seriously what […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2016\/01\/the-charter-is-of-no-party\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Policy Options\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/IRPP.org\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-01-29T01:25:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-08-28T19:25:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/WordPress-Imageallparliamne.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" 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