Parchment Guarantees

Vincent J. Curtis

6 Sept 22

RE: Rights not absolute.  Letter to the editor by Janice Warwick.  The Hamilton Spectator 6 Sept 22.

The remark that “Unless everyone is safe, no one is safe” is absolute, ridiculous and wrong.  This absolutism follows upon statements that individual rights in Canada are not absolute, and courts weigh individual rights against “the rights of the collective.”  This is embarrassing because these absurdities were said while castigating a history professor for his ignorance.

Straightaway, let’s observe that “the collective” has no rights.  It’s not defined in law what “the collective” is; it might have power, but not “rights.”

Canadians are now learning that the Charter is little but a “parchment guarantee.”  As Justice Antonin Scalia observed, every banana republic, every president-for-life has a Bill of Rights.  The Soviet Union’s Bill of Rights was much better than America’s, according to Scalia.  On paper.  But, as a practical matter, these Bills were worthless because they failed to prevent the centralization of power in one person or in one party.

The scare put into the public by the false reports of the incredible deadliness of COVID enabled the executives of the federal and provincial governments to seize unprecedented “emergency” powers, and civil rights were suppressed, allegedly to deal with the crisis.  All their measures failed, lots of people died anyway, and much was ruined.  A vigorous defense of our civil rights wouldn’t have prevented COVID deaths, but it would have prevented ruin.

It is a regrettable fact that many people worship at the altar of power, and say your rights are nugatory.

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