Canada's Constitution, vs. J.J. McCullough.

I do think that this whole business of
individual rights versus collective rights is an interesting one so I am putting out a challenge to my fellow Canadian youtubers particularly those on the left is this a good system of rights we have in this country there is an interesting asymmetry between the way Canada is perceived from the outside and how Canadians tend to feel about their own political processes institutions and traditions from the outside looking in Canada is often perceived as much more oppressive than it really is in part because there may be contrasting hysteria about the United States of America to propaganda about how wonderful life is in Canada so Canada seems very progressive and forward-thinking credence is America but in part also because we have a constitution written in the year 1982 technically it's called the Charter of Rights and Freedoms not the Constitution technically it's an annex to the British North America Act let's not get in the details in effect the constitution of Canada was only written in 1982 so for many people from the outside looking in they think wow it must be wonderful to live in a country where you're not encumbered by centuries of tradition or by having a constitution written in the sort of them befuddled opaque language of centuries past full of uncomfortable compromises about slavery colonialism imperialism that must be wonderful and Canadians never see it that way and never feel that way we tend to feel that we're trapped in a tremendously conservative anti revolutionary regime that was defined in the first place by a refusal to participate in a refusal to countenance or legitimate the American steps taken towards democracy we were the people the so called United Empire Loyalists who decided to remain loyal to king and country to follow the British colonial path so let's just start with an inspirational quotation from that 1982 Canadian Constitution so you get a feel of just how hip and postmodern and postcolonial and forward-looking our Constitution really gets Canada advocates the abolition of imperialism colonialism and any other form of aggression Dominion or exploitation in the relations between peoples as well as simultaneous and controlled general disarmament the dissolution of political and military blocks the establishment of a collective security system with view to the creation of an international order that is capable of ensuring peace and justice in the relations between peoples Canada recognizes people's rights to self-determination independence and the development as well as the right of insurrection against all forms of oppression isn't that isn't that wonderful rejecting imperialism rejecting colonialism doesn't this sound like a like the kind of forward-looking positive optimistic 20th century Constitution you'd expect a country like Canada have I just quoted for you the Constitution of Portugal written in 1974 at a very interesting confrontation with a professor at the University of Victoria not too many years ago came into the classroom and he was giving this very fiery dramatic performance telling the students what a revolutionary forward-looking document the Constitution of Canada is this same document from the 1980s the Charter of Rights and Freedoms telling these students I think every single student in the classroom except for myself was a First Nations person an indigenous Canadian and a divinity I think it was the only white person there maybe there was one other white person I forget but very few students in the class he was telling them that our Constitution holds up the rights of indigenous peoples overturns centuries of colonialism and oppression and that it reaches out to this tremendous history we have of signing treaties making a commitment with these people always anniversaries he said it takes those treaties and it proudly declares that from now on though are the law of the land and when it was question period I put my hand up and the first thing I said to him was you know I've read the constitution of Portugal the constitution of Portugal as a constitution written by a revolutionary country that explicitly says they reject their history of colonialism they reject their history of imperialism they reject their history of slavery against indigenous peoples of South America places like Brazil you can imagine enslavement of peoples in Africa it actually says those things in the text there are are countries around the world that have constitutions that make these kinds of declarations you're saying Canada is not one of them and I challenged him on two points the perming army is there a single sentence in in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms that has a single word along the lines of what you've just paraphrased or quoted from it is there a single sentence there about the importance of indigenous peoples or regretting the history of community for the rest of that or are you actually basing all this claim about the one kind of suffix the one appendix the one little thing tacked on the end where it says notwithstanding the details here are stated out this won't abrogate our treaty obligations than it people there's this little little footnote to a footnote little shameful secret shoved it under the rug that oh yeah right the country is built on Chloe genocide it's deeply dishonest in no way inspiring in no way revolutionary document the Charter of Rights and Freedoms the constitution of Canada it utterly fails to do the things a constitution ought to do and I also pointed out to the professor that contrary to what he'd said this is not a secular document describing the government Canada as a sort of atheist and progressive one that the very first sentence perhaps he was overlooking it declares that Canada is it actually declares the Canada's a theocracy basically if or taken seriously it opens with a religious pronouncement or religious declaration this can't be read as document defining a secular state if you think about what it is that a constitution is supposed to do or what it is that a Charter of Rights and Freedoms is supposed to do that is precisely what Canada's Constitution in Canada's charters and freedoms refuses to do because what it tells you is that you have all the rights and freedoms that would be reasonable in a democratic society and those freedoms are only limited in a way that would be justifiable or reasonable in a democratic society you have to define in this same document what is reasonable what is justice what is the Parsee what is democrat this this document is supposed to be telling you precisely what it refuses to tell you and in practice what does this mean what would the Canadian public in general if that's the point if you're supposed to take a poll and ask people what they think is reasonable like as if this document right now isn't supposed to tell them if you do it the other way around obviously all you're gonna be able to hear from the Canadian public is some kind of ill informed imitation of American society because the American idea of democracy is what they're familiar with from television and movies our constitution in 1982 was an opportunity to slam the door on a racist past on a colonialist fast on a British imperial past the Government of Canada utterly failed to slam the door they produced a document that absolutely nobody is proud of and I have to tell you I'm born and raised in Canada I'm a Canadian citizen I'm living in a country that I myself am in no way proud of I feel tremendously ashamed of my country and this constitution written during my own lifetime is a big part of that political conflicts at their worst tend to resemble religious conflicts and the discussion of politics never seems more religious than one more Abell written constitutions that's not because people believe in constitutions in the same sense that they believe in a religion however people have the same sense of hopelessness about constitutions that whatever the Constitution may say good or bad it's something they can never hope to change themselves it's something that you know for overcome themselves these documents that often in the time that they were written supposedly stated the lofty optimistic aspirations for a better world of their authors instead become a kind of ceiling limit you know a kind of encumbrance that every wants to work around because well no matter how bad it may be that's the Constitution and we're stuck with it that illusion is pervasive here in Canada even though our Constitution was only written in 1982 and nobody in Canada regards any of the authors of that Constitution with any special respect they don't have the aura of heroic revolutionaries like say Mao Zedong has in China they don't have the aura of great intellectuals that many of the contributors to the American Constitution still have in American politics they're thought of as brilliant men and creative writers who wrote interesting books and you lived remarkable lives absolutely no illusion of this kind exists in Canada and yet still the Constitution inspires this sense of almost religious dread and hopelessness when you talk to Muslims who are trying to be good people and live in the modern world and lead a rational life but who are also trying to maintain their status as pious Muslims to some extent they have this same feeling about what's written in the Quran and what's written in hadith like well whatever it says there we're stuck with it so you can rationalize it you can make excuses you can work around with it but there's no way to change it even worse the examination of constitutions has this strange sort of blindness on the part of the reader that religious texts also seem to inspire I have experienced as a scholar of Buddhism and have a whole long life of very peculiar political activism it's amazing that you can be sitting next to someone who's a pious Buddhist and show them what the text says and point with your finger word by word and they still don't see it and they still they won't admit to themselves what the texts Oakland that says if you ask them what do you think this means they let themselves think it through clearly I'm sure some of you have this experience in Christianity or Islam whatever their religion may be when you really just try to get someone to talk to key word by word think about what this short paragraph says think about these few sentences they will see things that are not there in the text and they will also refuse to see things that are there and I've had that experience again and again even with professors at the University of Toronto even with professor at the University of Victoria who are thus of themselves supposedly activists representing our native people or their left-wing activists trying to make the world a better place under one any or another there's a fundamental refusal to see this text for what it is and I think these two impulses are linked because if you can really admit to yourself how mediocre or even awful this text is then that immediately leads to the impulse to change it reform it improve it or do better and then that leads to that sense of hopelessness that sense of religious dread you know nobody even knows who wrote the Bible the anonymous authors of the Bible who were imperfect in so many ways the Bible is full of errors and repetition and self contradiction but whatever it is if you believe in it we're stuck with it and it can't be changed this same sense of dread manages to haunt canted at the Canada in relation to a documents written in 1982 that nobody believes in nobody even feels the sense of foolish pride the Americans have that they have the best country in the world with the best Constitution in the world and the Shania's why how did we come to be a nation so utterly resigned to its own mediocrity the planet is dying the government hates I see animals are leaving the aliens are contacting us we might be alone it just might be you and me but that's okay because you really need anyone else