Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Monday, April 16, 2012

Civil liberties trump fight on terror, Canadians say

A new survey marking this week's 30th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms shows Canadians remain largely - but far from unanimously - resistant to surrendering certain rights in the name of reducing the threat of terrorism.

Close to two-thirds (64 per cent) of the 1,522 respondents in a poll commissioned by the Montrealbased Association for Canadian Studies disagreed with the statement: "In order to curb terrorism in this country, it will be necessary to give up some civil liberties."

But significantly fewer respondents (57 per cent) balked at the idea of forcing citizens to carry state-issued I.D. cards and being subjected to random police checks, with 43 per cent agreeing that "everyone should be required to carry a national identity card at all times to show to a police officer upon request."

The findings were released to Postmedia News before a two-day, ACS-organized conference at the University of Ottawa this week - titled Checking our Constitution30 - where the April 17, 1982, patriation of Canada's Constitution and the adoption of the charter will be discussed and analyzed by some of the country's top legal scholars.

The Trudeau-era constitutional reforms "have had a profound impact on our law and public policy," the conference overview states. "Canadians hold a favourable opinion of the Constitution and charter. Yet many see these defin-ing documents as divisive."

A summary of the survey results notes that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, "security issues and how they affect human rights have been the object of considerable attention" across North America. In the U.S., tightened security regimes and expanded lawenforcement powers "have invited strong reaction from organizations engaged in the defence and promotion of human rights."

The ACS survey, conducted in March, says Canadians are considerably more open to rules requiring everyone to carry an I.D. card than they are to laws allowing police to imprison suspected terrorists without a trial.

Only 29 per cent of respondents expressed agreement with using that powerful tool to combat terrorism.

While, nationally, 71 per cent of those surveyed said they were against the idea, the strongest opposition was registered in Atlantic Canada (81 per cent) and the least in the combined polling region of Saskatchewan and Manitoba (68 per cent).

Although less than half of the overall Canadian population supported the concept of I.D. cards, a slim majority (53 per cent) among the oldest segment of society (those aged 65 and over) liked the idea.

A majority of Quebec residents polled (54 per cent) also expressed support for mandatory identification cards, while respondents from British Columbia (32 per cent), Atlantic Canada (36 per cent) and Alberta (39 per cent) were least likely to applaud the notion.

Forty-two per cent of residents of Ontario and Manitoba/Saskatchewan expressed support for I.D. cards.

The survey, conducted online during the week of March 19 by the polling firm Leger Marketing, is considered accurate to within 2.9 per cent, 19 times out of 20.

NO. 1 MODEL FOR THE WORLD

Randy Boswell

Thirty years after Canada "brought home" its Constitution from Britain and controversially enshrined the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the nation's fundamental legal framework has emerged as the No. 1 constitutional model for the world, says a new American study.

Canadian legal scholar David Law, a professor at Washington University in St. Louis, and University of Virginia law professor Mila Versteeg used a mathematical approach in assessing the global influence of various' constitutions and determined that Canada has a greater claim than any other country to have displaced the U.S. as the world's "constitutional superpower."

The study recently prompted a front-page story in the New York Times - headlined " 'We the People' loses followers." "The Canadian Constitution has often been described as more consistent with, and more influential upon, prevailing global standards and practices than the U.S. Constitution," said The Times.

Law and Versteeg conclude: "Unlike the U.S. Constitution, the Canadian Constitution is increasingly in sync with global constitutionalism."

Law explained that each of the provisions within the constitutions of "all of the so-called constitutional leaders" - the U.S., Germany, India, South Africa and Canada - were "turned into a series of numbers" to enable comparisons with the dozens of constitutions drafted in other countries around the world since the Second World War.

The idea was to compare the degree to which certain rights - such as freedom of speech, provisions protecting minority languages and the right to bear arms - were shared by other nations as they created or amended their constitutions over the past 65 years.

"As soon as the Charter is adopted, the Canadian Constitution shifts out of the global mainstream," he explained.

But then, by the late 1980s, the Law-Versteeg analysis shows other countries moving "with a vengeance" to match Canada's constitution. "What this strongly implies is that whatever Canada did in writing the Charter," said Law, meant that "other countries are imitating the Charter" or that Canada's constitutionmakers in the early 1980s "did an excellent job of anticipating global trends."

Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: Randy Boswell

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