00:00:06
so in my last video I spoke about the
00:00:10
concept of rights I wanted to keep it
00:00:12
more theoretical and have that
00:00:14
discussion really be about the idea of
00:00:16
what is right where do these ideas come
00:00:18
from now in the feedback some of you
00:00:20
asked me to talk about the actual
00:00:21
constitution of Canada and where our
00:00:24
rights here come from as opposed to more
00:00:26
of the philosophical or theoretical idea
00:00:28
which I still want to explore a bit more
00:00:30
but in this video I think will tackle
00:00:32
some of the more practical things so
00:00:34
let's start right at the beginning we're
00:00:35
going to jump right in so first of all
00:00:37
we have to address what is a
00:00:40
constitution where our rights come from
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you guys have heard words of like the
00:00:44
Charter I spoke last time about the
00:00:46
Charter being repatriated so what does
00:00:48
that kind of thing mean and we'll
00:00:50
explore all these ideas but first the
00:00:51
definitions so the definition of a
00:00:54
constitution a lot of people tend to
00:00:56
think I think about the American
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Constitution they might understand the
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Charter or know what the Charter is but
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not necessarily understand it as sort of
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a constitution it's really a part of the
00:01:07
canvass constitutional laws but the
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Constitution itself is an important idea
00:01:12
that we need to understand and so a
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constitution in its most basic sense is
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a set of principles or laws these are
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sort of the underlying foundational laws
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that a nation or state would have and
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this basically talks about how the state
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is going to be governed it can have
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about the rights or the requirements it
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can talk about when the government has
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to meet so for example how often the
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Parliament or the legislature or the
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Congress what needs to sit so these are
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the basic laws that a country would have
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now interestingly enough you would say
00:01:43
okay well you know I guess every country
00:01:45
has a constitution if you look at for
00:01:47
example the United Kingdom so you can
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see right here the United Kingdom
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because of its age and historical
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precedence does not actually have a
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single document like the Americans so
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the Americans in 77 1776 declare
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independence there's the Declaration of
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Independence and the later on there's
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the Constitution of the United States
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and all the amendments and you guys I'm
00:02:05
sure familiar with the 1st and 2nd
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amendment at the very least if not maybe
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some of the other ones but the
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Constitution can
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a single written document or it could be
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a group of documents and this is
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actually what Canada had so if we go to
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these guys these are the founding
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fathers of the country at the time when
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Canada was created as an a singular
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entity made up of the original four
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provinces there was an act in the
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British Parliament known as the British
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North American North America act the BNA
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act this was in 1867 and this is
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commonly referred to today as the
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Constitution Act 1867 but this is really
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the founding document that says okay you
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guys are gonna be a confederation this
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is gonna be a new New Commonwealth
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country that is gonna be called Canada
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it's made up of these four provinces the
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four original provinces and so this is
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sort of the first attempt at a
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constitution so at this point in 1867
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we're still not like the Americans with
00:03:07
a singular document Constitution because
00:03:10
we have what's called British common law
00:03:11
and that's again similar to what's going
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on actually in the UK where sets of laws
00:03:16
sets of a legal precedent all combine to
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sort of make up our Constitution now
00:03:22
this continues all the way until 1931
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which in which the statute of
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Westminster which is another law that
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was passed in in the UK that basically
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said that certain parts of the
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Commonwealth would be given self-rule
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they would be given the ability to to
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self govern and so this this act sort of
00:03:45
made up an additional part of Canada's
00:03:47
rights now interestingly enough because
00:03:51
we did not have our own constitution and
00:03:52
because we were so tied into Britain as
00:03:55
we still are in many ways today the
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Queen is the official head of state the
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governor-general as her representative
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is the official head of state on paper
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as much as the Prime Minister might
00:04:05
actually be the de facto head of state
00:04:06
which is the in reality head of state
00:04:08
but the the way that our Constitution
00:04:12
was set up and the way that our laws
00:04:13
were set up the Supreme Court of Canada
00:04:16
actually was not even the highest court
00:04:19
in the in the country the highest court
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in the country was actually something
00:04:23
called the Judicial Committee of the
00:04:25
Privy Council
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and that's in the UK so you could appeal
00:04:29
your you could appeal everything all the
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way to the Supreme Court but then you
00:04:32
didn't like the Supreme Court decision
00:04:33
so you could appeal to what's called the
00:04:35
J CPC the Judicial Committee of the
00:04:39
Privy Council and so that's where the
00:04:40
final final decisions would be made now
00:04:43
why is this relevant to the Constitution
00:04:46
or why is this relevant to everything
00:04:47
before we even get into the Charter so
00:04:50
first of all again the Constitution sets
00:04:52
up basic laws it sets out your rights
00:04:53
and freedoms so prior to 1982 you have
00:04:57
your rights contained in a number of
00:04:59
different places you would have the
00:05:02
Canadian Bill of Rights 1960 and the
00:05:05
Canadian Human Rights Act 1977 but
00:05:08
because of the fact that none of these
00:05:10
is actually in a constitutional document
00:05:12
it creates a bit of difficulty for the
00:05:16
judiciary so for the courts to try and
00:05:18
figure out which one of the Rights how
00:05:21
how the government is going to apply or
00:05:23
what happens if your rights are violated
00:05:24
because some of the governance documents
00:05:27
and some of the rights documents are all
00:05:28
different places and so the court really
00:05:31
has to sort of figure it out and again
00:05:33
in the UK to use the UK example because
00:05:35
they don't have a written constitution
00:05:36
that on one hand might be difficult but
00:05:39
they have centuries of British common
00:05:41
law and precedent where court cases have
00:05:43
been decided and how government is going
00:05:46
to respect or uphold human rights so
00:05:49
they have a lot of that history and
00:05:51
that's why for them it's a bit easier to
00:05:56
to to figure things out so back to
00:05:59
Confederation and back to the founding
00:06:02
fathers so again we have a number of
00:06:04
different documents then comes Pierre
00:06:07
Elliot Trudeau so in the elder Trudeau
00:06:09
and he decides that Canada is going to
00:06:13
have to have its own constitution so
00:06:15
we're gonna have to what's called
00:06:17
repatriate our constitution again unlike
00:06:19
the Americans who started off as British
00:06:21
colony in much as we did they decided to
00:06:24
break away declare independence so they
00:06:26
have a declaration of independence and
00:06:27
then they have the Constitution with us
00:06:29
because we stayed part of the
00:06:31
Commonwealth we stayed part of the
00:06:33
British Empire we never had that so we
00:06:35
had to repatriate so pay Trading
00:06:37
repatriating bring our Constitution back
00:06:39
home as
00:06:40
commonly referred to so we had to bring
00:06:43
that back home and that was done in 82
00:06:47
so that is what is called the
00:06:49
Constitution Act 80
00:06:50
that's where the Charter was adopted so
00:06:52
here you can see this is the
00:06:54
Constitution Act 1982 and this is also
00:06:57
the Charter but it's got many many
00:07:00
sections and there's a lot of things
00:07:02
about how you apply it and where the the
00:07:06
rights and responsibilities come from
00:07:07
what is the role you can see I was
00:07:10
looking up some principles here so this
00:07:12
is the big Constitution Act 1982 and
00:07:14
again this is when Canada officially
00:07:17
gets its own constitution so this is now
00:07:20
the highest document the highest legal
00:07:23
document in the country and so we can
00:07:25
use this to understand how we're going
00:07:26
to apply all the rights how we're going
00:07:29
to understand different rights and how
00:07:30
we're going to balance rights between
00:07:33
individuals and operations of the state
00:07:35
so this is all the document and I do
00:07:37
want to go through some of the Charter
00:07:39
just to talk about some of the issues
00:07:40
because again because of the coronavirus
00:07:42
crisis many people have questions what
00:07:44
right does the government have to make
00:07:46
these decisions these sometimes
00:07:48
arbitrary seeming decisions what right
00:07:50
does the government have and what are my
00:07:51
rights and how are these two things
00:07:52
balanced but just before there you can
00:07:55
see here here's a nice video of this is
00:07:57
1982 when the Queen came to actually
00:08:00
sign the Charter so she signed it
00:08:03
which again begs all kinds of
00:08:04
interesting questions about the sort of
00:08:07
Independence of Canada again we're still
00:08:08
very tied to the British monarchy and I
00:08:10
think you know there's some people who
00:08:11
have some issues with that some people
00:08:13
who have don't something do not have
00:08:15
issues with that for me it really all
00:08:17
depends on I guess the the de facto
00:08:19
state of affairs which means the in
00:08:21
reality state of affairs there's a lot
00:08:23
to be said for tradition and there's a
00:08:25
lot to be said for institutions
00:08:26
especially very old institutions so
00:08:28
shouldn't necessarily throw them out
00:08:30
immediately and really you know it all
00:08:33
depends on the how things are in
00:08:34
practice right in in Canada we have a
00:08:37
lot of ties to the British monarchy but
00:08:39
we're not necessarily on an everyday
00:08:41
day-to-day basis we're not really run by
00:08:43
the British monarchy or by the British
00:08:45
Parliament so you know again there's a
00:08:47
lot to parse out there I think maybe
00:08:49
that's the topic for another video
00:08:50
regardless I just wanted to pull up this
00:08:52
this cool video
00:08:54
show you a bit of that history in the
00:08:55
Canadian history so here back to the
00:08:57
Constitution Act 1982 so this is the
00:09:00
Charter and this part of the video if
00:09:01
you've been watching until now this part
00:09:02
of the video were actually gonna go
00:09:03
through some of the Charter and try and
00:09:05
talk about what that means so again here
00:09:08
is the Constitution Act 1982 this is now
00:09:10
the highest law of the land so right off
00:09:13
the bat whereas Canada is founded upon
00:09:14
principles that recognized the supremacy
00:09:16
of God and the rule of law in my last
00:09:19
video I spoke about sort of the natural
00:09:21
rights the god-given rights the
00:09:22
inalienable rights the fact the rights
00:09:24
that you have or that is believe you
00:09:26
have simply because you are a person and
00:09:28
then the rights that government has to
00:09:30
give to you these are the positive again
00:09:31
and negative rights the negative rights
00:09:33
leave me alone you don't need to do
00:09:34
anything so freedom speech just let me
00:09:36
say what I want positive rights you have
00:09:38
to give me something I have a right to
00:09:39
education and right to health or to
00:09:41
housing all these types of things so
00:09:43
again it's important I think that the
00:09:46
supremacy of God is in there because it
00:09:47
speaks to I guess the available and
00:09:49
natural rights of the person so we have
00:09:53
here that the Canadian Charter of Rights
00:09:55
guarantees rights of freedom said on a
00:09:56
subject only to reasonable limits
00:09:58
prescribed by law as and be demonstrably
00:10:00
justified in a free and democratic
00:10:01
society so here we go this is sort of
00:10:05
right off the bat I guess an interesting
00:10:07
one and this talks about the limits now
00:10:10
obviously you can think there might be
00:10:12
limits or when there would be a limit on
00:10:13
somebody's rights that's if they break a
00:10:15
law or if they're doing something
00:10:17
they're not supposed to be doing then
00:10:18
obviously their rights would have to be
00:10:19
violated because that prevents them from
00:10:21
fighting violating other people's rights
00:10:23
so again you commit a crime you're
00:10:24
arrested something you don't have the
00:10:26
right to go anywhere you don't have the
00:10:28
right to do a number of the things you
00:10:29
used to do you lost your free speech you
00:10:31
know you probably should still have the
00:10:33
right to remain free of unlawful search
00:10:35
and seizure which is in here but you
00:10:37
know you've lost a number of rights and
00:10:39
that is a justifiable that is very
00:10:40
justifiable because that's what it takes
00:10:42
to to keep a an orderly and lawful
00:10:44
society so right off the bat here is
00:10:47
sort of one of the founding principles
00:10:48
then we get to the actual freedoms so
00:10:51
this is a freedom of conscience and
00:10:52
religion freedom of thought belief
00:10:53
opinion expression freedom to press on
00:10:55
over there media and communication in a
00:10:57
peaceful assembly freedom of association
00:10:59
implied in this one interesting enough
00:11:01
is freedom to not associate so I can
00:11:03
choose to associate but I can also
00:11:04
choose not to associate some very
00:11:06
interesting legal cases there that
00:11:07
you'll talk about in another video so
00:11:09
these are the sort of the fundamental
00:11:11
freedoms then here's the democratic
00:11:12
rights talking about the right to vote
00:11:13
talking about in time of war you know
00:11:17
what must be done in the House of
00:11:18
Commons this one is especially
00:11:20
interesting interesting because the
00:11:22
coronavirus crisis is put to put to the
00:11:24
test some of these sort of democratic
00:11:26
principles there was quite an issue with
00:11:29
the house meeting or not meeting rather
00:11:31
and early on until we got some virtual
00:11:33
virtual parliamentary sittings able to
00:11:36
be done and so that again is very
00:11:38
interesting since it specifically
00:11:40
outlined what happens to do in what
00:11:43
should we do in a wartime where's this
00:11:44
one again there's a crisis of pandemic
00:11:47
you know probably not thought of when
00:11:49
the authors wrote this but again some
00:11:52
some parallels their mobility rights
00:11:54
talking about moving and in remaining
00:11:55
Canada moving to different provinces
00:11:57
these are the legal rights you have the
00:12:00
right to life liberty security the
00:12:02
person the right to be secure against
00:12:05
unreasonable search and seizure so I
00:12:06
spoke about that before the right to not
00:12:09
be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned
00:12:10
again some very important very
00:12:11
fundamental rights and in the legal
00:12:15
rights as opposed to sort of the
00:12:17
fundamental freedoms so right now the
00:12:20
government is not I don't think anyone
00:12:22
is arguing the government is violating
00:12:23
your freedom of conscience freedom of
00:12:25
religion I don't think they're talking
00:12:27
about some of these other rights you
00:12:28
know thought belief opinion peaceful
00:12:31
assembly maybe because you can't really
00:12:33
go anywhere freedom of association again
00:12:36
you can't really go anywhere so that
00:12:37
somewhat connected but the real one is
00:12:40
the legal rights the right to not be
00:12:43
arbitrarily detained the right to not be
00:12:46
in prison that's again you know
00:12:47
purporting with the with the stay home
00:12:49
orders with the property rights you can
00:12:52
go to your cottage you cannot go to your
00:12:53
cottage you know these these separate
00:12:55
rights and I think this is where people
00:12:58
are finding that question where have our
00:13:00
rights gone
00:13:01
what are happening to our rights and how
00:13:03
do we sort of make sense of all these
00:13:05
things because rights are I guess the
00:13:09
most basic fundamental block of building
00:13:11
a society the fact that everyone is
00:13:15
equal and has rights is something that's
00:13:17
not common throughout history because
00:13:19
throughout history you would have had
00:13:20
baby rulers
00:13:21
aristocrats the wealthy landowners you
00:13:24
know different categories of people
00:13:25
maybe different races different
00:13:26
categories of people they had different
00:13:28
rights than perhaps others you know so
00:13:31
you could have a slave or a indentured
00:13:33
servant or a bondsman we would have less
00:13:35
rights maybe no rights then you know
00:13:39
then different categories of people so
00:13:41
you know me everyone here everyone
00:13:42
everyone everyone that's really critical
00:13:45
and again that's part of the discussion
00:13:47
right now if well if everyone then how
00:13:49
are you how are you telling me this how
00:13:50
are you telling me to stay home how are
00:13:51
you telling me all these things because
00:13:52
everyone it's not just you know some
00:13:54
people so this is all part of that
00:13:56
discussion ongoing right now that I
00:13:58
think is important for us to look at the
00:14:00
most important part though that I think
00:14:02
most people do not know or understand
00:14:04
and I'm gonna have to control F to find
00:14:05
is the right here so this is the sorry
00:14:10
this is male and female that's them I'm
00:14:12
not the correct notwithstanding this is
00:14:14
a section 33 okay
00:14:15
section 33 now this is the I think most
00:14:20
misunderstood part of the charter of the
00:14:23
Canadian Constitution and I want to talk
00:14:25
about it because it doesn't really exist
00:14:27
in the same way in a lot of other
00:14:28
countries and this is what is called the
00:14:30
notwithstanding Clause so
00:14:32
notwithstanding Clause here I'll read it
00:14:33
up first let me talk about it Parliament
00:14:35
or legislature of a province may
00:14:37
expressly declare an act of Parliament
00:14:39
or of the legislature as the case may be
00:14:41
that any act or provision thereof shall
00:14:43
operate notwithstanding a provision so
00:14:46
you're not including a provision
00:14:47
including in section 2 or sections 7 to
00:14:50
15 so in section 2 this is up here this
00:14:54
is your fundamental freedoms or 7 to 15
00:14:57
the legal rights all the way down here
00:14:59
to 15 in quality rights okay so what
00:15:02
does that mean back to section 33 back
00:15:04
to the notwithstanding Clause so ok that
00:15:06
means that Parliament to the federal
00:15:09
parliament or a provincial legislature
00:15:10
can say can especially declare that an
00:15:14
act of Parliament or the legislature is
00:15:18
going to be in effect regardless of what
00:15:21
it says in section 2 or sections 7
00:15:24
through 15 so again so theoretically a
00:15:27
provincial government could pass a law
00:15:29
saying that you know you do not have
00:15:32
freedom of religion right there's only
00:15:34
going to be one
00:15:35
official religion or you do not have
00:15:37
freedom of association you do not have
00:15:39
the right going forward to be safe from
00:15:43
unlawful search and seizure so
00:15:44
theoretically a province could pass that
00:15:47
and therefore your rights as guaranteed
00:15:49
by the Charter are now not guaranteed
00:15:52
because section 33 the notwithstanding
00:15:54
Clause notwithstanding Clause has sort
00:15:56
of unguaranteed them in a particular
00:15:59
sense again this brings up a lot of
00:16:01
discussion of when is it valid when is
00:16:03
it a right that is permanent that it can
00:16:05
never be violated are there times when
00:16:07
it is appropriate to be violated this
00:16:10
section it is important to note has
00:16:11
never been used on the federal level so
00:16:14
the House of Commons has never actually
00:16:16
had to use the notwithstanding Clause
00:16:18
but provinces have used the
00:16:21
notwithstanding Clause and the most
00:16:23
famous example is Quebec with some of
00:16:25
the language laws to pull up a link here
00:16:27
I'll try and pull it up in a second but
00:16:29
some of the language laws in Quebec then
00:16:32
those ones you get around the the
00:16:36
Charter because there's a
00:16:38
notwithstanding notwithstanding Clause
00:16:41
that's being invoked and therefore they
00:16:44
can just get away and say okay well you
00:16:46
know we understand that we understand
00:16:48
that you know it says these rights here
00:16:50
and you know we believe in these lights
00:16:52
however the you know notwithstanding
00:16:55
because of special issues in Quebec
00:16:59
special dynamics in Quebec so therefore
00:17:01
we believe that this particular right is
00:17:03
it's more important to enforce another
00:17:05
right which is language rights and
00:17:07
French language rights as opposed to
00:17:09
this right of people so it's important
00:17:12
to look at these rights and the
00:17:13
notwithstanding Clause in one context
00:17:16
that it can be used to differentiate
00:17:17
between rights or perhaps reorder the
00:17:20
rights in different tiers so you might
00:17:22
say okay well you have two competing
00:17:23
rights but we are gonna now reorder them
00:17:26
so it doesn't necessarily have to be we
00:17:28
don't think you have freedom of religion
00:17:29
we don't think you have freedom of
00:17:30
conscience doesn't necessarily have to
00:17:32
be that it could be simply a reordering
00:17:34
a reordering of all different rights
00:17:39
different i'ts that are competing and so
00:17:41
that is something that I think is
00:17:43
something we need to keep in mind but
00:17:45
regardless the fact that there is a
00:17:46
section 33 that is
00:17:48
is different than I think a lot of other
00:17:51
countries where they have a straight
00:17:53
section that talks about how we're going
00:17:55
to deal with this is very important on
00:17:59
one hand but again this all ties into
00:18:02
the fact that you have to have and I
00:18:05
mentioned in previous video you have to
00:18:06
have a society who's willing to uphold
00:18:08
your rights and in our society in our
00:18:12
you know in the times of we're living
00:18:13
and it's the government that is
00:18:15
upholding your right so in a certain
00:18:17
sense the government is giving your
00:18:20
rights and I'm gonna you know you what
00:18:21
marks the government is giving you your
00:18:23
rights because ultimately it doesn't
00:18:24
matter if the rights are inalienable and
00:18:26
their god-given because the government
00:18:28
society at large is upholding those
00:18:31
rights for you
00:18:32
but then again here we're talking about
00:18:34
the way how to deal with those rights
00:18:36
and so the Charter as a document again
00:18:40
is super important because not only did
00:18:43
it finally bring together as in 1982 did
00:18:46
it finally bring together the laws of
00:18:49
the land in Canada under one document
00:18:51
which makes it much easier and sort of
00:18:54
more important it codifies them as the
00:18:56
basic law of this country but it's
00:18:58
important because right now a lot of the
00:19:00
discussion should revolve around the
00:19:04
Constitution around the Charter and
00:19:06
around our right because we can't talk
00:19:08
about rights unless we all understand
00:19:11
rights in the same way and that's what
00:19:12
this document is trying to do now I do
00:19:15
want to set up for the next for the next
00:19:17
video and I want to talk about you may
00:19:20
have heard this concept of the
00:19:21
Constitution or the Charter is a living
00:19:23
breathing document you may have heared
00:19:27
from her from the US people talking
00:19:29
about the Constitution literally or are
00:19:31
reading into it different things so I
00:19:33
want to talk about that and that's a bit
00:19:34
of a complex issue and that's how we
00:19:36
understand the Charter going forward how
00:19:38
do you read this document I mean this
00:19:40
was written in 1982 so much more recent
00:19:42
but if you're talking about other
00:19:43
documents how do you read them if
00:19:46
they're two three four hundred years old
00:19:48
or in the case of British krama how do
00:19:49
you read that if this is like eight
00:19:51
hundred years old right so something
00:19:53
about to talk about for another video
00:19:54
but other than that I really hope that
00:19:56
everyone found this video somewhat
00:19:58
useful and if you have any questions
00:20:00
about the Constitution I'd love to be
00:20:01
able to try and explore that to get
00:20:03
with you and you know keep posted
00:20:05
subscribe to our YouTube channel here at
00:20:07
true north I know a lot of the tune of
00:20:10
contributors my colleagues are talking
00:20:11
about a lot of very very important
00:20:13
things there's a lot of discussions
00:20:14
going on right now some of them many of
00:20:17
them have especially been speaking about
00:20:18
gun rights which is super super
00:20:20
important and I might even talk about
00:20:21
that depending on where we are sort of
00:20:23
in a week or so but so definitely
00:20:26
subscribe stay tuned like our social
00:20:28
media pages and follow us so you can
00:20:30
stay up to date on the latest
00:20:31
information other than that have a great
00:20:34
day wash your hands stay safe and I'm
00:20:36
Sam Ashkenazi for TrueNorth
00:20:38
thanks so much and hope you enjoyed
