You're asking a question that would be a good question for a whole graduate seminar: the effect of the charter on the political system in Canada.
One element that is key, and that would also be an element of an answer for the previous comments.... What the charter has done is ask the government to justify each and every decision that might affect rights and freedoms for one individual. This means that in the early years of the charter, for example, the government has had to go through all the laws on the books to make sure they were so-called charter proof.
What it means nowadays is that very often there is a game, and that's probably normal when you have a standard, where you have people trying to see what the standard means and how you can avoid the standard--not necessarily evade it but avoid it--or how you can do what you want to do while respecting the standards. That's what lawyers do with tax law all the time. So it's not something that is a problem in itself.
What I think it does is put the government, and the bureaucrats, as you were saying, always in a defensive position. For example, if we come back to the security certificate issue--because that's to me very enlightening--several ministers in a row from different parties and different governments have told us, “It's okay. We've checked that with our lawyers; there's no problem with the charter.” And this has been said of many acts of Parliament.
Then we get to the courts and the courts say, “No, you're wrong. Once again, you're wrong, and we'll tell you why.” Then we send it back to the political system, and the political system has to answer and provide a second type of procedure to see if it works. We'll go back to the Supreme Court, and maybe it will be accepted and maybe not.
What I'm concerned with is that, especially with immigrants...you see the number of cases that have gone to the Supreme Court in recent years on immigration issues or on multiculturalism issues with people who have recently come, etc. We have a tendency to think that foreigners should have fewer rights. That's our sort of common belief. When I was young, aboriginals were nowhere to be seen--they had no rights--and that was taken for granted. There had to be an overhaul of our whole conceptual thinking, and I think we're at that point for immigrants. We have to think now, and governments especially have to think proactively about how they can protect the rights of these people. What are the issues? When we are trying constantly to limit their access to justice--especially to recourses--what we are doing is placing a time bomb in front of us and waiting for it to explode; the courts will say, “No, you can't do that. We've told you time and again.” I think in terms of democracy, that's a problem.