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.
(more)
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
