Conservative values curtailed by the courts

At the end of this federal election campaign, voters everywhere will vote for the political party which best reflects their values. By doing so, voters will enter into a social contract with the political parties whereby it is understood that — in return for their vote — the winning party will enact those laws which reflect their shared values.

In the 20th century, the party which was the most successful at connecting with the values of Canadians was the Liberal party. The result was that for 69 years of that century the Liberals formed the government — both minority and majority. Each time they formed the government, they immediately began to implement laws which reflected the Liberal values of their voters.

For the past 10 years, it has been the Conservative party which has been most successful at connecting with Canadian values. As a result, it has successfully formed the government. Like Liberal governments before it, this Conservative government immediately began to implement laws which reflected the Conservative values of its voters.

Unfortunately for the Conservatives (but fortunately for the Liberals and NDP), our courts have repeatedly ignored the intent of these laws or declared them unconstitutional — thereby undermining the social contract millions of Canadians entered into when they voted Conservative. (The most recent being the court’s unseemly haste to overturn the Conservatives’ ban on wearing the niqab at citizenship ceremonies.)

If Conservatives successfully win the 2015 election, what should this new Conservative government do? Should it live up to its social contract with its voters and continue to implement laws that reflect Conservative values, only to have them ignored or declared unconstitutional by the courts as has happened so many times in recent years? Or should the new Conservative government take another approach?

Perhaps it should present its new laws to the judiciary before presenting them to Parliament. Once a judge has declared that a particular law is liberal enough to withstand judicial scrutiny, then the legislation could be presented to Parliament for a period of inconsequential debate — followed by a rubber stamp vote.

Not much of a democracy (or social contract for that matter), but it is the best Conservative Canadians can hope for now that the judiciary has made it perfectly clear that laws which reflect the values of Conservative Canadians will simply not be tolerated. Llew Hounsell Corner Brook