turningrite

Dialamah: It's bizarre to use extreme examples to draw general conclusions. Japanese internment was practiced in both Canada and the U.S. during WWII, presumably premised in both cases on assumptions of divided loyalties. In diverse societies, of course, this will always be a concern in instances of serious conflict such as during wartime, however unfair this might be. It might also be a more serious problem now in countries like Canada that practice open-ended multiculturalism and thus encourage greater degrees of ethno-racial and ethno-cultural polarization and ghettoization. Where ordinary politics is concerned, majority rule isn't generally an illegitimate notion and in fact failure to accommodate majority views could well lead to the demise of representative democracy if voters come to believe that the available political options aren't reflective of public opinion. Many see this as the basis for the emergence of populist parties in the West. Traditional parties can't simply dictate their interpretations of "acceptable" views to voters. That majoritarianism has from time-to-time had negative consequences doesn't delegitimize the concept. The fact that dictators like Hitler and Mussolini started out as elected parliamentarians doesn't mean we ban elections, after all. As for the burqa and niqab, I tend to see their use not in terms of religious "freedom" but more in terms of religious chauvinism and division. The most vehement opponent of such wear that I've met, as I've pointed out elsewhere, was a woman who came to came to Canada after fleeing post-revolutionary Iran. She thought Western views about religious freedom to be naive and daft, noting the accoutrements of religious fundamentalism to be inherently patriarchal and heavily political. I think the only practical basis for achieving religious freedom in a diverse democracy is secularism. Religion should remain a private matter, to be practiced privately. We'd all be better off were this the case.

Dialamah: Interesting logic. Couldn't one just as easily say that just because something is categorized as "fringe" doesn't mean governments shouldn't act? The whole exercise becomes circular. The more important issue is who gets to apply these labels. Trudeau decries the tyranny of fringe views to the extent of ditching promised electoral reform in order to silence them. But if, say, half the population actually believes something to be true - such as believing that immigration levels are too high - is this actually a fringe view? It's certainly cast as a fringe view by Trudeau and the coterie of interest groups that support his party. The problem we've developed here in the West is categorizing the political views and perspectives of others in ways that suit our own views and interests rather than considering the various aspects of these matters in open and rational contexts. Those who believe that our leaders are the only ones equipped to render these determinations aren't serving the interests of democracy.

You seem to place an inordinate amount of faith in the ability of technology to protect personal information and privacy. But is it reasonable to be so optimistic on this front?

Bernier is not actually an isolationist on immigration. My understanding is that he believes immigration levels and rules need to be adjusted to suit the needs and interests of the Canadian economy. Too many immigrants perform poorly upon arriving in Canada and too often continue to do so for quite some time, becoming an ongoing drain on public resources. Economically, of course, Bernier's views tilt toward libertarianism, or government non-interference in the economy. But as the famous libertarian economist Milton Friedman once noted, open immigration cannot realistically co-exist with a welfare state model. Bernier's party, if it comes to power, will have to pull back on immigration and work to curb the welfare state before easing up on immigration policy. It's the only rational and fair solution.

As a Torontonian, I don't really care about the size of city council. However, I still object to the apparent reason for Ford's action, which seems to be to exact payback for the perceived indignities he and his brother suffered during the ill-fated Rob Ford mayoralty. It's kind of perverse that Doug Ford now characterizes Toronto's city council as an ineffective circus when it appeared to a lot of observers that during Rob Ford's tenure this was precisely the Fords' intent. It was certainly in large measure a consequence of their behavior. The size of city council probably isn't a pressing issue for most Torontonians, while Ford's attempt to exact payback does seem a pressing concern for him, which is sad given that the province suffers many and far more serious problems that Ford might otherwise expend valuable political capital to address. But he has his own priorities. And, for many, they're clearly misplaced.

Hopefully you actually believe there is still a chance real democracy might prevail. Otherwise, why even vote? There was in interesting column by Andrew Coyne in the NP the other day about why Bernier's party might be the tonic Canadian politics actually needs. As Coyne notes, the established parties cater to "narrow and particular interests" rather than the broader public interest and in so doing have encouraged a state devoted almost entirely to redistributing income "to well-organized and well-cultivated client groups." This is about as sad a commentary on the state of Canadian democracy as one might imagine to be the case. Coyne feels that Bernier's views on immigration don't necessarily fit neatly with his more libertarian economic remedies but is willing to give the immigration debate a chance in order to see if Bernier can bring the rest of his agenda to the table. I believe Bernier's experiment might be the country's last chance for real democratic reform before the globalist system with Canadian characteristics (i.e. protection of cartels, monopolies and oligopolies) becomes a runaway train in this country. https://nationalpost.com/opinion/andrew-coyne-there-is-room-in-canadian-politics-for-maxime-berniers-worthy-experiment

Of course, Trudeau gets around all this by blithely claiming that Canada is a post-national state/society without a mainstream. Maybe that society's mainstream will wake from its trance and tell the politicians that it actually has valid interests and can't be ignored, insulted and manipulated to serve a narrow set of globalist objectives, as Trudeau would apparently prefer to do. If political populism emerges in Canada, as is happening elsewhere in the West, it will be a result of the tone-deaf insensitivity of our feckless elites, who in my opinion will deserve the dethroning they'll experience.

In theory this is true. In fact, not so much. I read a column in today's Toronto Star, by Chantal Hebert I believe, about why Trudeau won't exercise the federal government's power of disallowance. If he applies it to curb Ford's behavior he may have a much bigger problem down the road if (more likely when) a new government in Quebec implements strong legislation to enforce secularism. Trudeau's diversity crowd will no doubt pressure him to counter such a law and if Trudeau stops Ford to preserve the integrity of the Charter doing the same with Quebec could well result in a constitutional crisis. So, he's stuck. And the Charter is more or less what Brian Mulroney once said the notwithstanding clause renders it - essentially a paper tiger.

Yes, I agree with you. Immigration is an issue on which a federal government can act swiftly and decisively. The refugee issue may provide a greater dilemma both because of the complete mess that characterizes the current system as well as the obligation to adhere to international conventions. Native affairs is a real toughie, though, and perhaps in the current political environment a no-win proposition. Surely Trudeau has figured out that indigenous concerns can't be resolved with mere platitudes? And universal health care simply can't survive in its current form. As a person who has extensive first hand experience using the system over the past few years, I've concluded that it's running on fumes. I spent sleepless nights on emergency room gurneys as an "admitted" patient waiting for a room, spent months waiting for surgery and waited countless hours to see specialists when I've had scheduled appointments, etc. The system operates on a rationing basis and as demand for services keeps growing something will have to give. Harper took a stab at some aspects of judicial reform, however this is another tough file. Without adequate staffing and clear timelines, charges linger for far too long without resolution in this country. That serious crimes are being thrown out of court due to long delays is a travesty both for the real victims and for society at large. How can it be that in the U.S., with its complex system of grand juries, high profile charges can be brought to trial and concluded apparently in a fraction of the time this takes in Canada? There's clearly something wrong.

Parliament does in fact reign supreme in the UK where primary legislation is concerned. But there's a major caveat to consider when comparing the UK's Parliament with Ontario's legislature, which is that the House of Lords serves at least in part as a check on the House of Commons while Ontario's legislature is unicameral. The UK now has a Supreme Court, but it doesn't have the authority to overturn primary legislation. The UK, of course, has no equivalent to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms but its cumulative constitution includes the English Bill of Rights (1689) which emerged following the Glorious Revolution of 1688, establishing the system we now know as a 'constitutional monarchy'. More broadly, the rights of Englishmen (and others governed by legal systems grounded in the English/British tradition) were established over the centuries under the common law, aspects of which date back as far as the Magna Carta. I was somewhat surprised that the judge who threw out Ford's Bill 5 didn't reference common law principles in his decision, particularly where Ford's law interfered with the rules of an election already underway. I would think that going back over centuries of common law jurisprudence there might well be a precedent somewhere that addresses such conduct.

Sun tans and big noses? Huh? In any case, the problem with immigration in cities/urban regions like Toronto and Vancouver is simply numbers. Canada now accepts roughly 320K immigrants a year (and growing), half of whom end up in Ontario and a majority of these end up in the GTA. Now, you take a city of almost 3 million and an urban region of 6 million, in each case with infrastructure and resources sufficient for two-thirds that many. And then you add roughly 120K newcomers to the region year after year, and you add hundreds of thousands of temporary workers and tens or perhaps even hundreds of thousands of foreign students, and, voila, you have a recipe for a lot of very unhappy people. I imagine that Vancouver and its urban region face the same population stresses. Is it any wonder that polling indicates that people in these two cities/urban regions are the unhappiest in the country? (See link to G&M article, below.) It's not rocket science. That nobody in officialdom seems to have figured this out is utterly beyond rational belief. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-why-are-people-in-vancouver-and-toronto-so-unhappy/

The notwithstanding clause was controversial when it was first written into the 1982 Charter. It was only accepted in order to get a deal and there's since been an unspoken agreement of sorts that it only be used in very extraordinary circumstances. Mainly, Quebec has used it to shield its language laws from Charter challenges but most believe this a more-or-less reasonable application of the clause. That Ford is using the clause to address such a minor matter worries a lot of people, including politicians who were involved in the negotiations that generated the clause. Ford's behavior could open the floodgates, causing legislatures to casually apply the clause to escape judicial accountability. You're correct that U.S. legislators don't have such a thing at their disposal and the legal rights of Americans are more solidly protected as a result of this. In many respects, Canadian rights protections are weaker than their American counterparts. Free speech protections are much less solidly grounded here than in the U.S., for instance. I'm not sure about the rights protection regimes in European countries, but I believe Canada's free speech protections are among the weakest in the Western world. Our elites like it this way.

The separate school system may be wasteful. Certainly a valid argument can be made to that effect. Ironically, the separate school system was established under the 1867 Constitution to protect minority education rights. In some instances members of other minority religions have argued that the failure to provide publicly funded religious education for their communities is discriminatory. I suspect most Canadians wouldn't tolerate seeing the model expanded. Ontario had a provincial election in which this was a major issue and John Tory's PCs were soundly defeated in large measure for proposing an expansion of the system. I believe separate religious schools are a bad idea, so why take an anachronistic concept from the 19th century - which may well have served a purpose at that time - and expand it in the 21st century? Some provinces, particularly Quebec and Newfoundland, have abandoned the religious model. That's the future. As for the Waldman citation, presumably you realize that decisions of the UN Human Rights Committee have no enforceable legal effect in Canada. Further, the UN's record on human rights adjudication and enforcement has come under much deserved criticism as Western countries with generally good human rights records have been castigated while very often little is said or done to address countries that chronically abuse human rights. If the UN is your only point of reference, your argument isn't very strong.

Yes, it can.

I suspect you're correct. Maybe he's holding his cards close to his vest in order to neutralize the pro-immigration crowd, who no doubt will cast him as, well, you know, if he focuses on immigration and refugee policy. Bernier's libertarian economic views likely appeal to some voters but as so few pay much attention to substantive economic policy matters it's difficult to imagine it a big vote winner. Remember the bizarre appeal of the "budget will balance itself" in 2015? Immigration reform is where support for a new political alternative likely rests. If Bernier presents a viable alternative to the status quo on immigration, he could well get 20 percent of the vote and hold Trudeau's Libs to a minority in 2019. If he sticks pretty much to the status quo, my guess is that he'll fade into obscurity and Trudeau will easily beat Scheer.

I wasn't even aware Quebec separation remains a hot-button issue at this point in time. If it's not, why make it one? If one thing has become clear over the past few years it's that Quebecers and other Canadians share a lot of the same concerns and problems. We live on a continent dominated by a bullying neighbor to the south. And Canadians outside of Quebec share with that province many of the same insecurities over population and cultural trends. If anything, our interests have converged over the past generation. We already share a citizenship and Quebec is largely left alone to govern itself within its allocated areas of jurisdiction.

Bernier apparently intends to announce the formation of his new party on Friday. In related news, he's rebuffed any explicit association with an anti-immigration group and re-iterated his position that the immigration level be reduced to 250,000, which I think in the view of many may still be too high. Let's hope that once his party is formed he opens the whole immigration and refugee quagmire up for broad public consultation and promotes objective, comprehensive and ongoing review of our immigration and refugee programs.

Your comment doesn't make much sense. The point is that the U.S. has had codified rights in place since 1791 and yet many of the kind of issues you cite still emerged. Jim Crow laws were actually upheld by courts (i.e. under the "separate but equal" ethos), despite the existence of such rights. And the U.S. turned away the MS St. Louis refugees and interned its ethnic Japanese citizens, as did Canada. It's unlikely any such thing would be done in either country today, with or without the existence of the First Amendment or the Charter.

1.) This is an entirely different issue than whether large scale immigration provides a demonstrable solution to rapidly ageing populations in Western countries. Is immigration harmful to Canada or Australia, or to the U.K. or the U.S. for that matter? The answer depends on a lot of variables. The British economist Sir Paul Collier has noted that the overall impact of large scale immigration is neither good nor bad. He notes, however, that the while the economic impact is marginal, it disproportionately benefits the already wealthy, by suppressing wages and expanding markets for goods and services, while it disadvantages the already disadvantaged and increases economic inequality by suppressing wages and raising the costs for goods and services, including housing, the disadvantaged use. 2.) The problem of course is that sponsored family class immigrants as well as refugees, who in both cases constitute large components within our migration programs, don't have to demonstrate language skills. It is immigrants who arrive in these categories who in general have the most difficulty integrating and who tend to rely on public assistance and subsidies for extended periods of time. 3.) So, you're an insider? This suggests that your own views aren't necessarily objective. Presumably, you don't actually work in the immigration/refugee or associated government bureaucracies because those I know who do or have done so are in general quite critical of our programs.

Time and cultural change have altered our perceptions where the issues you cite are concerned. The Charter is modeled on the American 'Bill of Rights' concept, as elucidated in the First Amendment (ratified in 1791) to the U.S. Constitution. As enlightened and high-minded as that document is, it did nothing to end slavery nor to prevent Jim Crow segregation laws from emerging following the Civil War. Nor did it prevent the U.S. from (also) turning away the MS St. Louis refugees or interning that country's ethnic Japanese citizens during WWII.

I think you're confusing apples and oranges here. Much of the criticism of Bush v. Gore has originated from within the U.S. rather than from outside. Introspection is beneficial both for individuals and for societies.

Actually, Argus is correct about this. There's growing evidence that large-scale immigration does little to fundamentally address the main demographic issue, ageing, being experienced by Western countries. Australia, which conducted an extensive study of its immigration program(s), which in many aspects were modeled on the Canadian system, concluded that the demographic boost is largely temporary and cannot be sustained without maintaining constantly high immigration levels, whatever the economy's needs, a conclusion that's led some to describe the demographic rationale for high immigration levels as amounting to a ponzi scheme. As for language skills, the Australian study concluded that demonstrated English language skills (in Canada we'd have to add French language skills) on the part of immigrants lead to better economic outcomes for immigrants themselves and for the broader economy. I doubt this situation is any different in Canada.

The Bush v. Gore SCOTUS decision will live in infamy as an atrocious affront to American democracy. It's been described as amounting to a legalized coup d'etat, a situation proponents of the world's self-proclaimed greatest democracy should ponder.

The judge who overturned Ford's law reducing the size of Toronto's city council does not possess absolute authority. The provincial government can appeal his decision and ultimately the decision of an appeals court can be referred to the Supreme Court of Canada. There is a built-in even if cumbersome system of accountability where the judiciary is concerned. But, other than the courts, who holds majority governments accountable in our system? That role is intended to be filled by the courts. Of course, voters can turf a government, but usually only can do so after an extended period of time. We have to consider whether the applicability of the notwithstanding clause to democratic rights in fact renders our system less democratic than is the case in, say, the U.S., where courts exert considerable restraint on legislative and executive authority, as Trump has realized, much to his chagrin. Ford's action highlights a major weakness in our system that we need to seriously examine. Personally, I believe democratic rights (Sections 3 to 5) shouldn't be subject to the notwithstanding clause.

1.) Our "constitutional monarchy" is by historical legacy a democracy. Its roots extend back to limitations imposed on the monarchy (i.e. the state) by the Magna Carta and more relevantly as a result of the English Civil War and the Glorious Revolution in the 1600s, which served to firmly establish the principle of parliamentary supremacy. 2.) The Charter undermines the British legal tradition of parliamentary supremacy, a reality the notwithstanding clause intended to limit. I think the Charter reflects the world view of its principal architect, Pierre Trudeau, and his inner circle, however it's mainly grounded in a philosophy of protecting citizens from the state, and particularly from the arbitrary application of state authority, which in its own right isn't a particularly leftish notion. There has been broad and in some cases fair criticism of the tendency of the courts to become overly involved in matters of public policy. The notwithstanding clause was promoted by both right and left wing provincial politicians to address concerns about judicial overreach, however in practice it has seldom been invoked. Brian Mulroney, a PC prime minister not reputed to have been a lefty, apparently opposed the clause on grounds that it effectively rendered the Charter redundant. Ford, a PC provincial premier, seems intent on proving him correct, which at the very least seems ironic. 3.) Are appointed judges impartial? The question can only be answered by considering the alternative, an elected judiciary where judges clearly wouldn't be impartial. As far as I'm aware, all judges are lawyers, who by definition are reasonably well-educated and therefore more likely to hew to an elitist perspective on society. Unless we move to a system of citizen judges who are removed from the legal profession, a role generally invested in juries, the possibility of creating an entirely impartial judiciary is a pipe dream. Perhaps we need to give juries a broader role in esoteric constitutional debates. Would a jury, for instance, have awarded Khadr $10 million? Would a judge have made such an award? Likely not in the first case and possibly not in the second, had the Trudeau government not circumvented the process to impose its own interpretation of Charter rights. Where interpretation of the Charter is concerned, it seems to me we're no better served by politicians than we are by the courts.