Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-06T13:59:20.661Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Canadian Charter, the British Connection, and the Americanization Thesis: Toward a Montesquieuean Analysis of Rights and Their Protection

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 July 2017

Samuel V. LaSelva
Samuel V. LaSelva*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
*
Samuel V. LaSelva, Department of Political Science, University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC, V6 T 1Z1, email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article examines the Canadian Charter with reference to “the British connection” and “the Americanization thesis.” It also attempts to demonstrate the importance of Montesquieu's The Spirit of the Laws in addressing these issues. Pierre Trudeau insisted that a Charter of Human Rights would provide Canadians with a new beginning and settle difficult questions about the Canadian identity. His critics said that fundamental rights were already protected because Canada had a constitution similar in principle to the United Kingdom, and that the proposed Charter was a step in the Americanization of Canada. What a Montesquieuean analysis helps to identify are significant limitations in both “the British connection” account and “the Americanization thesis.” And, by the avoiding the abstract universalism of Trudeau's “inalienable rights” theorizing and Dworkin's “rights as trumps” regime, a Montesquieuean analysis also helps to demonstrate the distinctiveness of Canadian constitutionalism from Confederation to the Charter.

Résumé

Cet article examine la Charte canadienne par référence au « lien avec la Grande-Bretagne » et à la « thèse de l’américanisation ». En abordant ces questions, il tente également de démontrer l’importance De l’esprit des lois de Montesquieu. Pierre Trudeau insistait qu’une Charte des droits et libertés de la personne serait pour les Canadiens l’occasion d’un nouveau départ et réglerait des questions épineuses sur l’identité canadienne. Ses critiques affirmaient que les droits fondamentaux étaient déjà protégés, car la Constitution du Canada était similaire en principe à celle du Royaume-Uni et que la Charte proposée était un pas vers l’américanisation du Canada. Ce que l’analyse montesquienne aide à déterminer sont les limites importantes aussi bien du « lien avec la Grande-Bretagne » que de « la thèse de l’américanisation ». Et, en évitant l’universalisme abstrait de la théorisation des « droits inaliénables » de Trudeau et le régime des « droits comme atouts » de Dworkin, une analyse montesquienne contribue également à démontrer le caractère distinctif du constitutionnalisme canadien, de la Confédération à la Charte.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 50 , Issue 4 , December 2017 , pp. 1061 - 1081
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 2017 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

I am grateful to the three anonymous referees for their comments and to Chantale Roy for translating the abstract. My greatest debt is to the late Katherine Brearley for many helpful conversations

References

Adair, Douglass. 1998. Fame and the Founding Fathers. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.Google Scholar
Agresto, John. 1984. The Supreme Court and Constitutional Democracy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Ajzenstat, Janet. 2007. The Canadian Founding. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Amar, Akhil Reed. 1998. The Bill of Rights. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Bagehot, Walter. [1867] 1928. The English Constitution. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bailyn, Bernard. 1967. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Beard, Charles. 1962. The Supreme Court and the Constitution. Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
Berlin, Isaiah. 1979. “Montesquieu.” In Against the Current, ed. Hardy, Henry. London: Hogarth Press.Google Scholar
Bickel, Alexander. 1962. The Least Dangerous Branch. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.Google Scholar
Blattberg, Charles. 2003. Shall We Dance? Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Boucher v. the King , [1951] S.C.R. 265.Google Scholar
Brodie, Ian. 2002. Friends of the Court. Albany: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
Brown v. Board of Education , 347 U.S. 483 (1954).Google Scholar
Cairns, Alan C. 1971. “The Judicial Committee and Its Critics.” Canadian Journal of Political Science 4: 301–45.Google Scholar
Cairns, Alan C. 1988. Constitution, Government, and Society in Canada. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Cairns, Alan C. 1991. Disruptions. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Cairns, Alan C. 1992. Charter versus Federalism. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ceaser, James. 2011. Designing a Polity. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Craig, Gerald, ed. 1963. Lord Durham's Report. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Creighton, Donald. 1964. The Road to Confederation. Toronto: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Creighton, Donald. 1970. Canada's First Century. Toronto: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Curtis, Michael Kent. 1986. No State Shall Abridge. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Diamond, Martin. 1976. “The Declaration and the Constitution.” In The American Commonwealth, ed. Glazer, Nathan and Kristol, Irving. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Dicey, A.V. [1885] 1959. An Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution.10th ed. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Durkheim, Emile. 1970. Montesquieu and Rousseau. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1977. Taking Rights Seriously. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1985. A Matter of Principle. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Dworkin, Ronald. 1996. Freedom's Law. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Glendon, Mary Ann. 1991. Rights Talk. New York: The Free Press.Google Scholar
Grant, George. 1971. Lament for a Nation. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Hamilton, Alexander, Madison, James and Jay, John. [1788] 1961. The Federalist, ed. Wright, B.F.. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
How, W. Glen. 1948. “The Case for a Canadian Bill of Rights.” Canadian Bar Review 26: 759–96.Google Scholar
Ignatieff, Michael. 2000. The Rights Revolution. Toronto: Anansi.Google Scholar
Johnston, Donald, ed. 1990. Pierre Trudeau Speaks Out on Meech Lake. Toronto: General Paperbacks.Google Scholar
Keir, D.L. and Lawson, F.H.. 1967. Cases in Constitutional Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, James. 2005. Governing with the Charter. Vancouver: UBC Press.Google Scholar
Laforest, Guy. 1995. Trudeau and the End of a Canadian Dream. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Laskin, Bora. 1970. “Constitutionalism in Canada.” In The Fourteenth Amendment, ed. Schwartz, Bernard. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1990. Continental Divide: The Values and Institutions of the United States and Canada. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Manfredi, Christopher. 2001. Judicial Power and the Charter. Toronto: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mansfield, Harvey. 1991. America's Constitutional Soul. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Google Scholar
Meyers, Marvin, ed. 1973. The Mind of the Founder: Sources of the Political Thought of James Madison. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1973.Google Scholar
Montesquieu. [1748] 1989. The Spirit of the Laws. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Morris, Richard, ed. 1969. Alexander Hamilton and the Founding of the Nation. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Morton, F.L. and Knopff, Rainer. 2000. The Charter Revolution and the Court Party. Toronto: Broadview Press.Google Scholar
Ormsby, William. 1969. The Emergence of the Federal Concept in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Parliamentary Debates on the Subject of the Confederation of the British North American Provinces. 1865. Quebec: Hunter, Rose.Google Scholar
Penton, M. James. 1976. Jehovah's Witnesses in Canada. Toronto: Macmillan.Google Scholar
R. v. Butler , [1992] 1 S.C.R. 452.Google Scholar
R. v. Keegstra , [1990] 3 S.C.R. 697.Google Scholar
Reference re Secession of Quebec , [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217.Google Scholar
Richter, Melvin. 1977. The Political Theory of Montesquieu. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Romanow, Roy, Whyte, John and Lesson, Howard. 1984. Canada … Notwithstanding. Toronto: Carswell/Methuen.Google Scholar
Roncarelli v. Duplessis , [1959] S.C.R. 121.Google Scholar
Russell, Peter. 1973. Leading Constitutional Decisions. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Russell, Peter. 1983. “The Political Purposes of the Canadian Charter.” Canadian Bar Review 61: 30–54.Google Scholar
Russell, Peter. 2004. Constitutional Odyssey. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Sandel, Michael. 1984. “The Procedural Republic and the Unencumbered Self.” Political Theory 12: 81–96.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandel, Michael. 1996. Democracy's Discontent. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Saumur v. City of Quebec , [1953] 2 S.C.R. 299.Google Scholar
Schmeiser, D.A. 1964. Civil Liberties in Canada. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Scott, Frank. 1959a. The Canadian Constitution and Human Rights. Toronto: CBC.Google Scholar
Scott, Frank. 1959b. Civil Liberties and Canadian Federalism. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Shklar, Judith. 1987. Montesquieu. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Storing, Herbert. 1981a. “The Constitution and the Bill of Rights.” In The American Founding, ed. Rossum, Ralph and McDowell, Gary. Port Washington NY: Kennikat Press.Google Scholar
Storing, Herbert. 1981b. What the Anti-Federalists Were For. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Storing, Herbert., ed. 1985.The Anti-Federalist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Trudeau, Pierre. 1968a. A Canadian Charter of Human Rights. Ottawa: Queen's Printer.Google Scholar
Trudeau, Pierre. 1968b. Federalism and the French Canadians. Toronto: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Trudeau, Pierre. 1972. Conversation with Canadians. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Trudeau, Pierre. 1990. “The Values of a Just Society.” In Towards a Just Society, ed. Axworthy, Thomas S. and Trudeau, Pierre Elliott. Markham ON: Viking.Google Scholar
Trudeau, Pierre. 1993. Memoirs. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart.Google Scholar
Vaughan, Frederick. 2003. The Canadian Federalist Experiment: From Defiant Monarchy to Reluctant Republic. Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press.Google Scholar
Verney, Douglas. 1986. Three Civilizations, Two Cultures, One State. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Vriend v. Alberta , [1998] 1 S.C.R. 493.Google Scholar
Waite, P.B. 1962. The Life and Times of Confederation. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar