The community of ideas makes a comeback.
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Tag: Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
Constitutional adherents, civically responsible citizens, conservative democrats, concerned parents fearful for their children, honest lawyers, and physicians — the ore of the nation — have become social pariahs.
Governments discriminate all the time, Pardy says, and the effectiveness of the Charter is limited.
Late last month former Newfoundland Premier Brian Peckford launched a lawsuit to challenge the federal proof-of-Covid-19-vaccine requirement for air travel. Peckford, the last surviving political architect of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, said that governments are ignoring the Charter with their pandemic rules and creating a constitutional crisis. If anything, that understates the trouble Canada is in. Bruce Pardy provides a bracing evaluation of how the Charter actually operates in an era of expansive government and imaginative jurists.
“Even in the best of times, we’re a heartbeat away from tyranny. Democracy is one of the most fragile concepts in the world. That’s why most of the world doesn’t have democracy…. Democracy may be fragile, but we shall defend it.”
In Canada, some are apt to believe that vaccine mandates surely must contravene the charter. But has a specific charter right been breached? Or is it just the charter’s vibe?