From: golchowy@alchemy.chem.utoronto.ca (Gerald Olchowy)
Subject: Re: GAZETTE EDITORIAL: AN INTELLECTUAL LUXURY
Organization: University of Toronto Chemistry Department
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 22:49:33 GMT

In article <Bw2wn3.CqD.1@cs.cmu.edu> clamen+@CS.CMU.EDU writes:
>
>			AN INTELLECTUAL LUXURY
>	       Pierre Trudeau skirts too many realities
>
>			 A Gazette Editorial
>			   Sat, Oct 3, 1992
>		   [redistributed with permission]
>
........

........
>
>   Nowhere was his distortion more apparent, or more dismaying, than
>in his brutal attack on the proposed Canada clause.  A concerned
>listener could easily have come away concluding that if the
>Charlottetown accord took effect, the Charter of Rights would be
>eviscerated.
>
>   That is absolutely not true.
>
>   The Charter of Rights stands and will stand intact, a bulwark for
>all Canadians and a towering legacy of the many who Thursday described
>himself as a former law professor.
>
>   The Canada clause is just an interpretive clause, telling judges to
>bear certain characteristics of Canada in mind when they rule on cases
>involving the Charter or other parts of the constitution.  These
>characteristics include Quebec's distinct society and Canadians'
>commitment to the vitality and development of minority-language
>communities, among other things.
>

The language of the Canada Clause implies that the collectivities
are fundamental and the Charter is subsidiary to it...why was the 
Charter removed as one of the fundamental characteristics at the
last moment in Charlottetown?

>   To hear Mr. Trudeau tell it, this clause would create classes of
>Canadians.  But there is nothing wrong with interpretive clauses.  Mr.
>Trudeau himself put one right in the body of the Charter,
>instructing the courts to take Canadians' multicultural heritage into
>account when they ruled.  That did not create first and second classes
>of citizens; nor would the Canada clause.  It simply reminds courts
>of Canadian realities.
>

Trudeau's interpretative clauses are within the Charter and do not
apply to the entire Constitution as the Canada Clause does, and the
language of the multicultural clause does not imply or suggest that
multicultural rights are more fundamental than individual rights.

>   Mr. Trudeau made some superb points (it is hard to recall, for
>example, a more devastating attack on the claim that provinces need
>more powers).  But the heart of his critique of the Charlottetown
>accord is, as always, his adamant refusal to countenance anything
>remotely resembling collective rights, which he believes can only
>erode individual rights.
>
>   Individual rights are part of the bedrock of western society, the
>foundation of freedom.  But they stand along most effectively in a
>unitary, homogeneous state without significant minorities.  As soon as
>a country expands to include more than one collectivity, the rights of
>the various groups also have to be considered, and in particular the
>rights of minority collectivities have a legitimate claim to
>protection.  Mr. Trudeau's own Charter affirms the rights of several
>collectivities, notably native people and English- and French-
>speaking minorities.  That is not a flaw, it is something Canadians
>can be proud of.
>

Trudeau protects the Treaties which were based on nation-to-nation
negotiations.  Official minority language education rights are a
small perturbation or deviation, unlike the Canada Clause which
collectivises the entire Constitution.

>   Finally, there is the former prime minister's claim that a No vote
>would bring constitutional peace.  In evoking that seductive prospect,
>he simply ignored the virtual certainty that if the Charlottetown
>accord is rejected, separatists will cry triumph.  This proves, they
>will say --- and who will be able to gainsay them --- that Canada can
>never change to accommodate Quebec.  The only solution, they will cry
>with redoubled vigor, is independence.  And many people, weary and
>discouraged, will believe them.
>

Better that the nationalists be allowed their vote on sovereignty, which
we stand a pretty good chance of winning if we inform the debate, than
see Canada lost through appeasement.

>   The politicians and bankers who warn that a No vote will carry a
>price are not, as Mr. Trudeau suggests, blackmailers --- they are more
>like Cassandra, doomed to make true predictions which their hearers
>refuse to believe.
>

Charlottetown fails the Royal Bank's own test of what should be the
content of a unity accord.

>   Questioners at the Cite' Libre evening raised some uncomfortable
>points with Mr. Trudeau.  Why, one asked, does he speak out only after
>a deal is struck, when it is too late to contribute constructively
>toward it and the only effect can be destructive?  Another, as
>staunchly federalist as Mr. Trudeau himself, dismissed his argument
>as an intellectual luxury.
>

A fraudulent argument...every informed Canadian knows Trudeau's
constitutional position, which has been basically unchanged for
for 40 years...the first minister behind the closed doors in 
Charlottetown knew full well what Trudeau would say of their 
poisonous constitutional tamperings.

Gerald
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