THE NEED TO PROTECT ALL CHARTER RIGHTS
... unless it suits Trudeau and the Liberals
On the 31st anniversary of the introduction of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Justin Trudeau extolled the principles of “democracy, equality and fairness” embodied in the Charter.
“It is our enduring responsibility as Canadians to ensure that these rights and freedoms are always upheld and preserved, never devalued or diminished,” the prime minister said in an April 2013 statement.
Fine words. But, as is so often the case, the government’s actions have fallen short of its rhetoric.
A case filed in the Federal Court last week by a Toronto anti-abortion group, as reported last week by my National Post colleague Brian Platt, makes clear there is a hierarchy of rights in this country: at the apex are those rights the Liberals find agreeable, at its base are those they find abhorrent.
The case revolves around funding applications for the Canada Summer Jobs program, which provides grants to small businesses, nonprofits and public-sector organizations to hire full-time students. In the application guide, organizations seeking funding must check a box affirming that they respect the values underlying the Charter, including women’s reproductive rights and the rights of gender-diverse and transgender Canadians.
Failure to do so invalidates the application.
In its funding applications, the Right to Life Association of Toronto explained why it could not agree with the wording in the applicant’s guide but attested it supports all Canadian law, including the Charter and human rights law.
“We believe the Minister (in this case Employment, Workforce and Labour minister, Patty Hajdu) does not have the jurisdiction under law to compel us to make a statement that conflicts with our conscience rights under the Charter. Nor does the Minister have the right to compel speech as a condition of receiving a financial benefit from the government of Canada,” the TRTL said in its letter to the minister.
The organization is confident that its application will be refused because the minister’s office has already made clear it will not offer funding to anyone who works to limit women’s reproductive rights.
In 2016, TRTL received $10,800 from summer student funding, a grant Hajdu’s office deemed “an oversight.”
“That’s why this year we fixed the issue and no such organizations will receive funding from any constituencies represented by Liberal MPs,” the minister’s press secretary told iPolitics.
But when did the Liberal Party become the arbiter of which rights take precedence?
Women’s reproductive rights are protected under section 7 of the Charter, thanks to 1988’s Supreme Court decision in R v Morgentaler.
But the freedom of expression of applicants to the summer jobs program is also guaranteed under section 2.
You don’t have to agree with anti-abortion groups like TRTL — and I don’t — to find it offensive that the Liberal government is blocking access to funding provided by all taxpayers, based on the legitimate political beliefs of the applicants.
The Liberals used to criticize the Harper Conservatives for riding roughshod over the Charter and procedural fairness in pursuit of political gain.
They howled when thenattorney general Peter MacKay, the minister mandated to protect personal liberties, introduced a law on prostitution deemed by many legal experts to be unconstitutional.
The Trudeau government has turned out to be more like its predecessor than it would care to admit.
The government knows it’s on thin legal ice — in November it settled with three antiabortion groups, including TRTL Toronto, because they were denied funding on the basis of criteria not set out in the applicants’ guide. The new attestation check-box is an attempt to provide legal cover to a move the anti-abortion group considers “unlawful and unreasonable.”
The Liberals will relish being portrayed as defenders of a woman’s right to choose — even if the rights of their political opponents are infringed.
But in doing so, Trudeau is turning the Charter into a constitutional buffet — and in direct contradiction to his explanation for the $10.5 million compensation payment to Omar Khadr, which he said was made precisely because the Charter protects all Canadians.
“There is no picking and choosing,” he said at the time.
Except, it seems, when it is politically expedient to do so.