Mr. Speaker, I rise today to speak on the motion before us. I must say I have listened with a great deal of interest to some of the arguments presented by my friend in the Reform caucus, members of the Official Opposition and the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce who moved the motion. I agree with the member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce that the notwithstanding clause in the Constitution is a fundamental and, some might say, fatal flaw which emasculates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The override clause is contradictory to the idea of inalienable rights. On the one hand the charter says that the people of Canada have inalienable rights. On the other hand they can be taken away by legislation when the government chooses. That is a fundamental contradiction. It actually puts us in a position where we do not have a final set of inalienable rights that cannot be taken away from us at the whim of government.
I want to talk about some of the ramifications of this point and then talk about some other flaws in the charter. As I said earlier, the government can suspend specific rights granted in the charter at its whim. Governments are usually elected with only a plurality of the vote and very seldom by a majority. Even when they are elected with a majority, the majority is giving them that endorsement on election day for a variety of reasons but often not specifically so that they have the legislative authority to take away fundamental rights.
I could use my home province of British Columbia as an example. In the last election its government was elected with 38 per cent of the popular vote. Now it is in a position to use legislative power to suspend charter rights in British Columbia if it so chooses, even though it were only elected with 38 per cent of the popular vote. At this point its popularity has gone down, not up. As we sit here today the Government of British Columbia probably enjoys less than 25 per cent support among the people.
Again I say this is a fundamental flaw in the charter. It gives a government which enjoys very low popular support the ability to override fundamental rights in the charter. I consider that to be anti-democratic. It is very anti-democratic at its very roots. I therefore concur that the override provision in the charter is not in the interests of the people.
The mover of the motion has gone. I wanted to ask him some questions. The way the process evolved that brought us the charter was flawed in itself. That is the reason we have problems with the charter. The framers of the charter never consulted in a meaningful way with the people. There was no opportunity for Canadians to come out and express their opinion on the charter. Whether they agreed with it or disagreed with it or whether they
wanted changes, it was framed by a group of elite politicians in a power brokering deal between the federal government and the provinces with very little if any opportunity for the people to put forward their points of view.