It's Driving Him Crazy

Popular wisdom holds that Stephen Harper's incandescent hatred of Pierre Trudeau is rooted in the National Energy Program. But, Michael Harris writes, it goes much deeper than that:

Stephen Harper’s real fight is not with the Supreme Court per se, but with the 1982 Constitution that created the charter. The problem for the Supreme Court is that it has the sole responsibility to assess all laws passed by Parliament against their interpretation of the charter. That means laws sometimes get struck down — although Parliament always has the option of responding with another law.

Ultimately, Harper is trying to crush a vision of Canada that sits behind the bulletproof glass of the Constitution — Pierre Trudeau’s vision, which saw the people as greater than their government. Harper can’t get at it, he can’t change it — and he can’t stand it.

And, so, we find ourselves spectators once again as Mr. Harper tries to do an end run around the Constitution in his second attempt to pick a Quebec judge from the Federal Court of Appeal:

Mainville’s appointment violates Section 98 of the Constitution: “The judges of the courts of Quebec shall be selected from the Bar of that province.”

Part of the problem is procedural hocus-pocus. Harper never bothered to ask the Supreme Court to answer the question about whether a federal judge could be appointed directly to the Supreme Court. Instead, when Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin tried to forewarn the PM and the Justice minister (really the same person) that there might be problems with the Nadon appointment, Harper reached for a mudball.

Last week, the Court informed the government that, if it wished to go fishing into Canadians' Internet travels, it needed a warrant. The Charter keeps getting in the way. And it's driving Stephen Harper crazy.

Stephen Harper And The Charter

Stephen Harper has refused to recognize the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as a significant Canadian achievement. There are many reasons for the prime minister's ill will. Chief among them, Roy Romanow has said, is that Harper is on the wrong side of history. He harbours a burning resentment for the world of the 21st century. He has, according to Peter C. Newman, "the best medieval mind in the Commons."

Harper views the pluralism embodied in the Charter as heretical. Haroon Siddiqui speculates that Harper's refusal to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Charter is because:

It has advanced free speech, freedom of religion, women’s equality, aboriginal rights, English and French linguistic minority rights, gay rights and the rights of immigrants, refugees and multicultural minorities.

Or, Siddiqui writes, perhaps he hates the Charter because he sees it as a Liberal achievement:

The Charter was ushered in by a Liberal government — that, too, by Pierre Elliot Trudeau who was too French, too rich, too arrogant and too socially progressive for many conservatives. They loathed him. He, in turn, couldn’t care less what they thought, which made them madder still. Their hatred and his disdain made for quite a show.

But that view simply doesn't take note of the facts. Rene Levesque refused to sign the document. But if he had signed, he would have betrayed the raison d'etre of his party. What was more important was that none of premiers who signed the document were Liberals:

But let’s not forget that at the historic 1981 First Ministers’ Conference, which hammered out the Constitution, Trudeau won the backing of nine premiers, none of whom was a Liberal and as many as seven were Conservatives. Even Brian Peckford of Newfoundland and Sterling Lyon of Manitoba, who disliked Trudeau intensely, signed on. And it was a Tory premier, Bill Davis of Ontario, who helped broker the deal. 

The simple truth is that the men who repatriated the constitution -- with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms -- were men of far greater vision and generosity than Stephen Harper. When judged beside them, it is painfully apparent that Harper is a very small man.