Canada is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system. A significant difference between Canadian and Australian government is that Canada has an appointed Senate unlike Australia's which is elected. The Governor-General appoints the Canadian Senate from recommendations by the Prime Minister. Canada is a federal system and has a bill of rights known as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This is entrenched into the Canadian Constitution of 1982. Canada has had a bill of rights since 1960, however, prior to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms it was a statutorial act, not a constitutional one.
So what is the platform of the Canadian Republicans? (more)
Lisa Adamson has
an interesting article on the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Canadian Charter of Freedoms
and the speeches Steve Harper and Rob Nicholson made on the issue. Adamson writes that Harper and Nicholson are opposed to constitutional rights due to the conservative belief in the supremacy of the legislative. This is an incorrect reading, especially in a parliamentary system which collapses the executive and legislative into the one body in the lower house. She should have written that conservatism believes in executive supremacy.
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holdenrepublic : Bill of Rights et al: This is an excellent analysis of the opposition to constitutional Bills of Rights.
cam : Harpurian Replicanism: argues that the maximum moral expression of an individual comes with maximum liberty. So a Bill of Rights under Harpurianism is essentially guaranteeing, not only a minimum level of liberty, but a minimum level of moral expression. The counter-side is that executive intrusion into liberty limits moral choices. A good example is that fellow in the US who received a spurious gag order from the FBI and had to lie to his wife, family and friends because the state was forcing him to. Which is effectively arbitrary government limiting an individual\'s moral expression.
cam
Giorgio Agamben's thesis in his books have been that the state of exception has become a common form of governance to get around constitutionalism. The most recent excuse for governing under a state of emergency has been terrorism. This subversive form of governance has not been limited to national or state governments. (more)
Inspired by Mark Steyn in the Spectator, and derivatively quoted in the Oz this morning ...
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