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The Charter is a Reactionary Document

October 20, 2015

The Charter is a Reactionary Document

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is sacrosanct in many circles, particularly among those who consider themselves “liberal.” Yet there is nothing “liberal’ in the classic, traditional sense of a code of laws claiming to be the supreme law of the land.

The history of liberalism denounces the idea that an individual’s rights come from a piece of paper created by the state. The whole point of liberalism is to be as anti-state as humanly possible. Thanks to the great work of Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, it’s now conceivable how obvious anarchy is.

The history of Britain, Canada and the United States are extraordinary because these countries have been based on customary traditions and a unifying thread of common-law. It is only when governments started codifying common-law into legislation that problems arose and thus prompted governments to act further – to remedy a problem they themselves created.

In Canada, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was that remedy, but it was, and still is, the incorrect treatment.

Liberty and peaceful social order lay in the decentralized, heterogeneous law-making of precedent-setting common law (or any law based on voluntary human action).

That is, law that arises from actual conflicts will settle conflicts. Common-law arose from real conflicts and were non-political ways of resolving these conflicts.

Code law, on the other hand, is self-defeating.

Canadians assume that before the Charter, they had no rights or freedoms, but this simply isn’t true.

Canadians lived in a – relatively – free and prosperous society long before 1982. There were problems with the practice of parliamentary sovereignty, but prior to the state’s appropriation of basic rights and freedoms via the Charter, Canadians were by default free.

It was in the British liberty tradition that Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier declared, “Canada is free and freedom is its nationality.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Supreme Court Rejects Argument to Dismiss Landmark Fracking Case

July 1, 2015

Supreme Court Rejects Argument to Dismiss Landmark Fracking Case

Jessica Ernst’s charter claim hearing slated for 2016.

The Supreme Court of Canada has rejected a motion by the country’s most powerful energy regulator that Jessica Ernst’s case involving fracking and groundwater contamination raises no significant constitutional claim and should be dismissed.

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin ruled that the case raised a significant constitutional question on whether or not an “immunity clause” in the regulator’s legislation placed it above the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Is the regulator’s immunity clause, asked McLachlin in her June 25th ruling “constitutionally inapplicable or inoperable to the extent that it bars a claim against the regulator for a breach of” the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?

But Glenn Solomon, counsel for the Alberta Energy Regulator, argued in submissions to the court that “no constitutional question should be stated in the present matter.”

After the Supreme Court agreed to hear the charter case last April, it required lawyers representing Jessica Ernst to clearly state the question and Solomon to agree on the wording.

But Solomon told Ernst’s lawyers that “We will not be able to agree on a constitutional question.”

 

The Alberta Energy Regulator’s obstruction cost Ernst more time and money, but she is satisfied with McLachlin’s ruling and definition of the final constitutional question.

“If energy regulators can violate our charter rights, there will be no protection for citizens living in areas where industry is fracking for hydrocarbons,” Ernst told The Tyee.

Fracking damage alleged

Hydraulic fracturing, a technology described by industry as a combination of “brute force and ignorance,” injects highly pressurized fluids into shallow and deep formations with the goal of splitting open rock as dense as concrete to release small amounts of oil and gas over vast distances.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

 

 

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