HOW WE GOT OUR CHARTER

Tuesday marks the 30th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canadians cherish the document, consistently giving it approval ratings of 80 per cent and more. Yet the anniversary won’t be celebrated by the Stephen Harper government, which did not mark the document’s 25th anniversary, either. The prime minister has not been a fan of this bill of rights, which has advanced women’s equality, aboriginal rights, English and French linguistic minority rights, gay and refugee rights, and also helped make the Canadian multicultural model the envy of the world. He is among those conservatives who think “activist judges” and “activist courts” undermine the supremacy of Parliament by empowering citizens too much. In fact, “a Charter would not happen under Harper,” says Roy Mcmurtry, one of architects of the Charter, produced at a historic first ministers conference in 1981.

As the Progressive Conservative attorney general of Ontario, Mcmurtry worked across partisan lines with the Liberal Jean Chrétien, then federal justice minister.

They helped bring about a compromise between then-prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau and the 10 premiers.

I interviewed Mcmurtry, who said about Harper, “He wouldn’t support it anyway, because he does not like the judiciary very much, and he certainly does not like compromise.

“Harper is showing ridiculous partisanship, and a continuing lack of respect for Parliament. He authorizes attack ads (against political opponents) . . .

“All this will eventually undermine Canadian democratic values.” Haroon Siddiqui