Canada’s courts are sick.
But there is a cure, and YOU are part of it.
Let me describe the problem, and then I’ll tell you how you can be part of the solution.
Back in 1979, Prime Minister Trudeau asked the Supreme Court of Canada to define Canada’s Constitution. The judges answered that there are two equally-important parts to the Constitution: the written document, and the body of tradition that we inherited from Magna Carta through the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
That body of tradition says that in a constitutional monarchy, all government action is in the name of the Crown, but the Crown has no direct role: everything is done through the three branches of government: the elected legislature makes the laws; the Cabinet administers the laws through the civil service; and the courts settle disputes according to the law as they find it written.
That last phrase is important. Judges interpret law, but they don’t make law.
However, in 1982, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was embedded in our new Constitution, and that made judges the final arbiters of the law.
It wasn’t always that way.
Back in 1929, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that women were not “persons” under the law. Five spunky ladies from Alberta challenged that ruling, taking it to the Privy Council in England. The Privy Council overruled the high court and declared that women are, indeed, persons.
But in 1947, with the Citizenship Act, Canadians lost the right to appeal to the Privy Council. That Act and the Charter, together, left the judiciary supreme. Since 1982, judges—and especially the ermine-clad masters of the Supreme Court—have become increasingly activist. And example is the recent ruling in a Quebec case that denies parents’ right to determine their children’s education. That ruling violates the decision by Canada’s Parliament to sign the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which clearly affirms those rights in Article 26, Section 3.
The Supreme Court doesn’t care. In fact, Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, in a speech in New Zealand to a world convention of judges, urged judges world-wide to rely on their own judgement, rather than on laws or constitutions.
Whoa! That sent up warning flags.
So what’s the solution?
Parliament has to create a Standing Committee on the Judiciary, and give it the power to examine any court ruling, on the sole ground of its conformity to the constitution. If the committee decides a particular court decision looks unconstitutional, it would bring a Bill into Parliament to change that decision. That would make the courts accountable to the Standing Committee for conforming to the Constitution; the Committee is accountable to Parliament; and Parliament is accountable to the electorate.
This is where YOU come in: you have to write to your Member of Parliament, tell them the courts are out of control, and DEMAND that Parliament create the Standing Committee on the Judiciary.
Now the ball is in your court—the court that has final authority inn a democracy.
3 Responses to “Canada’s Courts Are Sick”
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Adding a form letter to this post that constituents can edit as they wish would be a helpful tool to get the ball rolling on the letter writing campaign to our MPs. Thanks for informing us of this important issue.
Thanks – we’re working on it!
When murder without guilt (abortion), and love without meaning(Kinsey Sex Education) which includes the normalization of homosexuality as an alternative option is being taught from Kindergarten to impressionable schoolchildren, then B.C. has changed it’s worldview politically and legally.
Citizens ought to organize politically, and hand pick politicians who will pass Traditional Family Values Bills into Laws. Why are you electing politicians from Parties who have rotten policies and pass perverted Bills into Law to our Parliament and B.C. Legislature that subject impressionable schoolchildren to believe perversion is normal in a guise to stop bullying? Bullying is wrong for everybody.
The Supreme Court Of Canada also legalized an activity that the majority of Canadian Parents and Citizens considered sexual child abuse in 2005. We worked very hard with Traditional Family Values politicians to get Parliament to raise the age of sex consent in 2008 to stop pedophiles from sexually exploiting children in Canada by right. Be careful what the N.D.P., Liberal and perverted politicians from other Parties with bad policies, ask you to vote for them to legalize. When Bills are passed by these politicians they become Law, and these perversions start to be taught to children by right in schools. This is what has happened in B.C. and can be easily changed by the citizens political will, because in a democracy the voting citizens get the governments who pass Bills into Laws that the citizens and their schoolchildren have to live by. We worked hard to get our government to pass a Bill in Parliament into Law in 2008 when the Supreme Court Of Canada Legalized in 2005, an activity the majority of parents and citizens considered criminal. If a B.C.Teachers Federation wants to normalize perversion from Kindergarten they can be stopped politically as well.