Constitutional Forum (Journal)
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Covid, Courts, Communists and Common Sense
No full textCovid-19 is a serial killer. In less than two years it has taken the lives of over five million people. It preys on the vulnerable and the elderly. Seniors in long term care facilities are a favorite target.
Governments have reacted differently to the threat. Some, including China and Australia, have adopted an aggressive, no- nonsense approach, locking down major cities for months at a time. Others, including Sweden and Brazil were, at least initially, more restrained and laissez faire, allowing their citizens to move about freely and letting the virus run its natural course. Countries also differed in the extent to which the general public was engaged in deciding which approach to adopt. In some the public were very active; in others not at all. In China, public debate and criticism were prohibited. Decisions were made by senior members of the Communist Party from behind closed doors and policies were presented as a fait accompli. In Europe and the United States, members of the general public were much more vocal and outspoken. Citizens who disagreed with their governments organized large protests and demonstrations and, when they were not listened to, took their political masters to court. 
Checking our Attachment to the Charter and Respecting Indigenous Legal Orders: A Framework for Charter Application to Indigenous Governments
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From Isolation to Inclusion: How the Charter Changed our Perceptions of Being and Belonging
No full textThe Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is an indispensable catalyst in shaping Canadian identity, forming a rich and diverse mainstream that integrates and intermingles many streams of human experience. The idea of Canada and what it means to be Canadian is dynamic and evolving, empowered by a Charter that arguably for the first time recognized and affirmed Indigenous peoples as the founding nations of Canada, and nurtured a sense of inclusion that promoted unity in diversity. Just as emergence from the Covid-19 pandemic has been a journey from isolation to inclusion, so has the forging of Canadian identity since the adoption of the Constitution Act, 1982. Drawing from stories shared in a circle aux batons-rampus, and from observations from a four-decade career as a public intellectual, I argue that Canadians’ evolving sense of being and belonging, brought into even sharper relief by the Covid-19 pandemic, is shaped by a Charter which embraced both individual and collective rights
Towards a Renewed Relationship: Modern Treaties & the Recognition of Indigenous Law-Making Authority
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The Charter at Forty: Commemorating Patriation and Reflecting Upon the Promises and Perils of Human Rights
No full textBetween November 8 and 10, 2021, a national online conference, The Charter at Forty: From Isolation to Inclusion: Navigating the Post-COVID World, gathered an impressive array of scholars, human rights advocates, community leaders, artists, and policymakers to commemorate and critically assess the four decades since the important occasion of April 17, 1982, when Canada patriated its Constitution and elevated the country’s human rights agenda to constitutional status. With 40 years of hindsight, it is a truism that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has fundamentally changed the Canadian social, political, legal, and cultural landscape. Given the influence of the Charter, its 40th anniversary presents an opportunity to reflect on Canada as a settler colonial state with imperfect features of bilingualism and multiculturalism
Isolation and Human Rights: Arendt and the Charter at Forty
No full textGreat excitement greeted the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because it promised to deliver constitutionally enshrined equality rights (among other things) to all Canadian citizens. Those who had been formerly excluded from full civil and social participation because of social inequalities, prejudice, and bias would now be included in a new social compact. And, as the title of the conference that inspired this paper suggests, that promise was also that those isolated as a result of those exclusions, no longer would be
Introduction: Pluralism, Contestation, and the Rule of Law
No full textAround the world, the current political conjuncture is one of profound challenges for constitutionalism and the rule of law. In the United States, the executive has willfully engaged in a prolonged attempt to weaponize the machinery of the state and radicalize public opinion in order to undermine a democratic election. In the European Union, the increasingly authoritarian relationship between the executive and the judiciary in Poland and Hungary is posing the most profound threat to European constitutionalism in decades. In Hong Kong, the Chinese state is actively seeking to undermine legislative and judicial independence in the face of unprecedented pro-democracy mobilizations. In India, Lebanon, Bolivia, and elsewhere mass mobilizations are challenging, and being suppressed in the name of, the rule of law. Here in Canada, the Wet’suwet’en and their supporters, as well as the Tsleil Waututh, Haudenosaunee, L’nu (Mi’kmaq), Inuit, and members of countless other Indigenous nations are contesting the very nature of the rule of law, as they assert Indigenous laws against the law enforcement of the colonial state. Around the world, the use of emergency powers in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is also raising profound constitutional concerns