Exactly 50 years ago this summer Prime Minister John Diefenbaker gave Canada a Bill of Rights, a law which "recognized and declared" a range of "human rights and fundamental freedoms." Last week's news stories about Quebec's Bill 94, and about U.S. shock pundit Ann Coulter, are a sad reminder of how far we have slipped since then.
On July 1 1960, proposing his Bill of Rights in Parliament, Diefenbaker concluded with these much-quoted words: "I am a Canadian, a free Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship God in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and for all mankind."
In Canada today, however, you're "free to stand for what you think is right" only provided that loud angry people do not claim to be offended by your views. And you are free to worship in your own way only as long as your religious practices do not mysteriously provoke unreasoned dread in other people.
(Yes, we know that Coulter is not a Canadian citizen, although our few niqab-wearers might be. But either way, that hardly matters here. The impulse to control other people is no respecter of such niceties.)
The Bill of Rights, though ground-breaking in its day, was only a law, vulnerable to easy repeal. Some 22 years later Pierre Trudeau and the premiers rebuilt Canada's whole constitution around our current Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which included most of the same rights (though "enjoyment of property" was omitted).
Since 1960, and especially since 1982, the notion of "human rights" has acquired an almost-sacred status in Canada, and in a few other countries. This would be a welcome development, except that this elevated status has been used to promote "collective rights" which, paradoxically, often become weapons used to reduce individual rights.
For example, some human-rights commissions in this country are themselves among the worst threats to freedom of expression. And a mob's "right" to avoid being offended can, we saw last week, silence a speaker. University of Ottawa President Allan Rock, trying to whitewash his administration's acquiesence in intimidation, merely revealed how sadly far we have fallen from Diefenbaker's vision, or from the formulation attributed to Voltaire: "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Quebec's Bill 94, meanwhile, shows how "collective rights," even so badly defined as this new right for bureaucrats to see people's faces, can overrule individual freedom of attire. Instead of tackling the hard work of integrating immigrants, Quebec chooses to push them to "fit in."
Basic freedoms keep coming under attack from forces seeking more control over our lives. Ultimately laws and lawyers will not save us unless there is a strong public understanding that the limits on free choice, imposed by mobs or governments or both, will keep growing unless we all resist them.
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/opinion/fallen+short+ideals+rights/2737983/story.html#ixzz0jZgu1nGZ