Funny I thought this thread would be even more popular than my "What would you do if Prime Minister?" thread. It's hard to believe that there are not any Canadians, leftwing/rightwing, English/French, Federalist/Seperatist, Liberal/Conservative with an opinion on the Constitution!

   

Well, then, I'll jump in. It's ironic that the majority of changes you recommended are identical to the Charlottetown Accord of 1992, which canadians overwhelmingly rejected. <br /> Anybody who's read my other submissions can tell what I'm going to say, constitutional changes are not necessary when the population controls the government. The vast majority of people don't need constitutional protection, and I would never never never ever ever enshrine 'property rights' in a constitution. There is nothing 'natural' about private property, in some cases its preferential, but the only thing that ensures is that corporations have even MORE rights than currently <br /> I find it interesting that natives were offered distinct status in Charlottetown, yet natives also overwhelmingly rejected the accord. I sometimes wonder whether the whole rejection of it was based on the fact that a hated government wanted it. Trudeau has far more energetic supporters in the east, yet in the east is where the most people supported it. <br /> One simple solution to the 'distinct society' clause is simply to make all provinces 'distinct', of course that would decrease federalism further.

   

I was wondering whether you could elaborate on your specific reasons more. For instance, an elected senate would go a lONG way to improving canada as they ratify all laws and essentially have been an instrument of the liberal party since at least the fifties and probably before. But why only a veto for non-budgetary items? The budget would be the primary place where the veto would be most helpful, at least as things currently stand. <br /> While I think that there should be a certain amount for culture, I don't think I'd put it in the form of CBC. Do some real hard core research on the CBC, they really are a propaganda machine. They are simply hell to work with. The same goes for the national film board. I'm not discounting them completely of course, but I don't think something in the constitution is necessary. If less money went into federal coffers and more stayed in the provinces then the provinces could afford more cultural luxuries. However, it's a complicated issue, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland have a far more thriving cultural agenda than New Brunswick, which doesn't even have a department to deal with it. NB Film is the most underfunded co-op in the country and essentially consists of one guy.

   

[QUOTE BY= Macdonald/Borden] <br />Any thoughts? From any of our seperatists here by any chance?????????? <br />[/QUOTE] <br />In the absence of their thoughts I will submit mine. The Constitution to Quebecois (and will argue FHQs) is like Treaty to First Nations. First reaction is to gag under a gag order. How can you fairly negotiate Constitutional "changes" when you are the minority. Ask Levesque or Bourassa. Very much like NAFTA is to Canadian Sovereignists. Or the Charter of Human Rights to the Yanks. <br /> <br />There is just nothing to negotiate and these are all a big scam (except fot the last item) to buy the various interests (aka public officials or the Democracy of the day) at stake. Treaties, Constitutions (&NAFTA) belong to Museum IMHO. They are valid references to work from when moving to new democracy paradigms. I will argue DD is one and most incompatible with the previous one.

   

There is too much emphasis on the written constitution. The fact is that we can all get along fine without changes to the ones we have got. <br /> <br />A case in point hs been the "writing in" of equality rights for gays and lesbians into the Charter of Rights by the Supreme Court. <br /> <br />I fail to see what an elected Senate with equal representation from all provinces would add. The notion of represenation by population falls to the wayside when Prince Edward Island receives the same representation as Ontario or British Columbia. <br /> <br />Australia has a form of a triple E senate, which, a few years back, resulted in a senator from Tasmania holding the balance of power. Results in lots of new roads but not necessarily good governance.

   

I completely agree that an elected senate presents all kinds of new problems, my claim is that it is better than it stands currently. Whenever there are political appointees to positions of power who cannot be removed I find insulting to the very notion of democracy. There are an infinite number of ways to implement an elected senate, and the american and australian system are only two. <br /> Currently, the senate are merely the tool for keeping the liberal party in power. It's only when a conservative party is elected that we see them doing anything other than rubber stamping. Those of us of a certain age remember when Mulroney went to the queen to let him nominate more senators so that free trade could be passed, because the liberal senate was thwarting every thing he did. I'm not saying that that's necessarily bad, in fact it would be so much better if they did it when the liberals were in power as well. <br /> An elected senate who didn't represent a party would be even better. People seem to forget that there are lots of things that all canadians have in common-the senators would not always be at loggerheads. This is especially true in areas of the environment which the feds typically ignore but which affect all of us. <br /> If you combine this with the fact that virtually everything about the senate is secret and cannot even be discovered, you have a true abhorration of democracy. It's interesting to note that an elected senate is one of those issues which consistently tops 80% approval in all parts of the country in polls. Yet you can't even get the government to discuss it.

   

You raise a number of good points Marcarc. At the time, I had no difficulty with Mulroney asked QE2 to appoint the additional senators. It was unacceptable for for the appointed upper house to thwart the will of the elected Commons. <br /> <br />While my preference would be the elimination of the upper chamber, for now I like the toothless senate.

   

Ahh Kish, I see that you're a New Democrat. Well personally I think that the idea of simply having no Upper House is foolish. Sir John A. Macdonald created the Senate as a second sober afterthought to the policies of the House of Commons, and there are times when an elected government even one with a majority can over step it's limits. However a senate which is simply appointed by the people in power has little true legitimacy. <br /> <br />A non-partisan Senate would not be such a bad idea as it would be a refreshing change from the politics of the House, but it would have to be equal between the provinces. The western provinces, both poor and rich do feel isolated and excluded and have for more than a century. Whether you agree or not that western alienation exists, it would work wonders in promoting provincial fraternity and harmony and it would a legitimate second sober afterthought to the House. <br /> <br />A nation really does need a Constitution, it is a written body of the nation's values which will ensure that it is always governed in a democratic way and if written in accordance to Canada's values will ensure that our values can never be corrupted by a government. In response to Macarc, yes there are some similarities between my proposal and Charllotetown, but many of Charlottetown's proposal's were progressive and essentially good, except for the part (Mulroney's idea) that free trade be entrenched! <br /> <br />In response to culture if the way that the CBC was operated was set out constitutionally then it would remove the channel from being the propaganda machine that it sometimes acts as. The fact of the matter is, is that under a Harper government, or probably under any other government privatization of the CBC and CRTC would become a reality. The CBC is one of our last real institutions of Canadian culture, that is why it was created by Arthur Meighan and despite the fact that government's in the past have abused the channel, it has promoted Canadian culture. If it was sold we would be left with Fox and Fox News and Izzy Aspern's Global Canwest giving Canadians their news, cultural insight and entertainment. <br /> <br />You will not see any Canadian stories on those channels, the fact of the matter is, is that if you are not able to afford cable and get the History Channel, than the CBC is the only source where you can learn about Canada and Canadian history. It must NEVER be sold. It is Canada's free and universal source of entertainment, education and news, it is truely Canadian from end to end, despite some it's problems. We would be loosing one of our greatest national treasures if we ever lost the CBC. <br /> <br />Yes Charllotetown was rejected (though not by a wopping majority), in my opinion it had more to do with Mulroney's unpopularity since the accord was so attached to him than it did with the accord itself. The fact is, is that most Canadians supported the accord, as did all three mainstream parties (the Tories, Liberals and NDP). <br /> <br />Now I wouldn't add a part destroying NAFTA even though I am protectionist because I realize that it is a highly contentious issue and while Canadians are split on it in Ontario and the Praires, and pretty strongly against it in the Maritimes, there is strong support for NAFTA in both Alberta and Quebec. I would deal with cancellation of certain aspects of the treaty that severly harm Canada and Canadians in another seperate way, while keeping a working and productive trade arrangement going with the Americans and the rest of the world that will actually benefit Canadians and Canadian businesses. <br /> <br />Lastely in regards to private property, it is a fundemental right of all Canadians to own property, manage their own businesses and make a profit. The NDP insisted that private property by excluded and average Canadians have suffered as a result. The municipalities can even build through people's lawns without having to ask for permission or pay compensation for damage done. What a democracy! <br /> <br /> <br />

   

Good reply! Well thought out so I'll put as much thought in my ideas. First, how do you apply property rights? Personally, I agree that everyone has the right to a place to live, a place to work (a business or whatever), however how do you apply that? Such a concept of property rights will never exist. This means that every homeless person, unemployed person, native person, or apartment dweller can sue the government to provide them with a house, a yard and a business. Of course I think that would be wonderful, however, we'd never see that in a million years. When and if property rights are enshrined you will find them to be used to make sure that no matter how unjustly acquired, property is out of reach of normal legislation. In other words, the sanctity won't be on the simple right to own property, but it will be hard to legislate what is done on that property. <br /> <br /> There are only very specific conditions under which a municipality can simply take away my property. In most cases homes have an abutment or a right of way, which means that next to the street the government can put a sidewalk or something. Where my parents live the municipal government owns the front ten feet of their property yet still can't put in a sidewalk because two people on the street don't want it. I couldn't agree more that we are far too much at the mercy of the government, however, although it does happen, it's pretty rare that property is taken without compensation. In fact, if you go to New Brunswick you can go to Kouchibouguac and see the armoured house of Jackie Vautour who refused to move when they built the national park (so sometimes it's even impossible for the federal government to remove somebody). Before you get too sympathetic for him though my mom told me that he was the one in charge of evicting other people from the park. <br /> Next, I don't think that free trade was meant to be enshrined in the Charlottetown Accord, though it's been awhile since I read it. I do know that what was 'entrenched' (and there was not much that was actually entrenched in the accord, on most points it was quite vague) was the attempt to get rid of interprovincial trade barriers, not NAFTA (though if you let me know which article I'd believe you because it has been awhile) <br /> Next, the senate was meant to be the chamber of sober second thought, but if you actually read the history of the chamber as well as look at what they actually did you will find that they almost never functioned as such. The idea of paying tens, perhaps hundreds of millions per year for a 'toothless chamber' seems to me to be extravagant. A good example of this is after 9/11 when canada, along with most of the world, brought in draconian laws to curtail our most basic freedoms. The 'chamber of sober second thought' never even gave it one and it passed much as it had been presented in the commons. To combine two of these issues we can mention that part of that legislation meant that we got a letter from our home insurer indicating that if the government ever destroyed our home in combating terrorism, such as using it as a surveillance base, etc., then we are not covered. <br /> Next, I don't quite agree with what I suspect are your views. There was no real evidence that Stephen Harper was going to sell the CBC, only an internal memo between party members. I think this one of those 'fear mongering' lines that came from other parties. I agree on the symbolic importance of the CBC though as I said, I have serious issues in its function, and highly doubt any government would sell it. The more realistic thing would be to continually lower its budget or change its function. WHile I agree in theory that its an interesting idea to entrench its funding in a constitution I have no doubt that an innovative governing party would simply gut it's staff, put in their own people, so that it would be even MORE of a propaganda machine. Personally, I would support a television tax such as the british use to fund the BBC. We're already paying a tax on blank CD's to pay off music companies, perhaps one on blank video cassettes. <br /> My other disagreement is your somehow coming to the conclusion that 'most canadians supported the charlottetown accord'. That's just patently false since it didn't pass. Attributing it's failure to Brian Mulroney is also spurious, I personally voted against it, but not because of Mulroney (who I didn't like) A good book on this is "Strange Bedfellows, trying times". Polls clearly show that the more people learned about the accord the less they tended to favour it. Initially, polls heavily favoured the accord, and those in power only had the referendum because they thought it a formality. Mulroney certainly wasn't more popular at the beginning than at the end. People who hated him already hated him from Meech Lake and Free Trade, and as a Power corporation mouthpiece, among many other reasons no doubt. As we've seen, although the west wanted an elected senate, they didn't want 'distint status' for quebec. I suspect in an accord that covered so many things people found one they didn't agree with. <br /> As I said, if they held a referendum tomorrow on an elected senate the vast majority of people who vote for it, according to virtually every poll done. <br /> While I agree that a chamber of sober second thought is a good idea in theory, I think that 'it's still a good idea in theory-perhaps we should try it!'

   

[QUOTE BY= Macdonald/Borden] Ahh Kish, I see that you're a New Democrat. [/QUOTE] <br /> <br />Bold assumption, but wrong. Never have voted for them. I have always seen them too soft on sepratism. Can't say that I have much respect for any of the current crop of parties. Alas, the subject of another thread. <br /> <br />[QUOTE BY= Macdonald/Borden]A nation really does need a Constitution, it is a written body of the nation's values which will ensure that it is always governed in a democratic way and if written in accordance to Canada's values will ensure that our values can never be corrupted by a government.[/QUOTE] <br /> <br />A country does indeed need a constitution, but it need not be written. The U.K., for instance does not have a written constitution but clearly has a democratic government that adheres to that country's history, values and tradition. <br /> <br />We follow, to a certain degree, in that tradition. While our Constitution Act identifies a head of state, it makes no mention of a head of government (i.e. a Prime Minister). Nor are there written rules on how a Prime Minister is put in place or removed. <br /> <br />Another example of that tradition is the example I provided earlier: the writing into the Charter of Rights the rights of groups not specifically identified in the Charter (i.e. gays and lesbians). It's not done because such a provision is included in the Constitution Act, but because society has changed over the past twenty years and it is the right thing to do. <br /> <br />Canada as a society evolves. Sir John A. is likely spinning in his grave seeng all of the changes that have occured here. Recall that the original BNA Act gave the federal government all residual powers that had not been spicifically assigned to the federal government. It also gave the federal government the power to disallow provincial legislation. I am sure that at no point could he have conceived of the significant devolution of powers to the provinces. Nor could he concieved of a Charter of Rights. <br /> <br />Unlike others (please visualise my elbow pointing south), we have a constitution that is both written and non-written. A codified document, requiring us to delve into the minds of "founding fathers" leaves a form of governance that is ossified. <br /> <br />In the end, I think that the current document serves us reasonanbly well.

   

First Canadians didn't reject the charlotte town accord by alot. Brian Mulroney choose to make drastic changes to Canada and he thought Canadians were going to accept them in 2 months. They didn't. And the charlotte accord didn't pass. <br /> <br />I am a NDP supporter but I must say I agree with kish on one thing. The new democrats are way too soft on seperatism. Seperatism in Canada is such a weakness for our country and they don't even bother to fight it. <br /> <br />The Senate should be scrapped. Like Norway and Sweden they have just a house of commons and nothing else. I use these two countries because they seem to make alot more sense then Canada. <br /> <br />A constitutional change to give Quebec distinct society would be like saying the majority of people in Quebec want that status. I was watching politics in early october and this guy was on the show telling don newman about recent polls he had done and they found that there was alot of people that didn't like Paul Martin giving Quebec a special deal on health because they didn't want to be treated differently from the rest of the country. <br /> <br />The monarchy should be scrapped. You don't need to hold a referendum for this. You can put it through parliament. This happened in the 90's and the liberals choose to keep Queen Lizzie. I was looking at this CIA website that shows all countries and facts about each one. On Canada's it showed 28% of people have british origin,24 % have french origin and the rest are other euro countries, African, Latin america, Asian etc. My point is if english and french were founding nations why on earth is British culture so dominant and not the french. <br /> <br />I think for this country to actually remain united things like this actually need to be adressed and people need to change in Canada. I don't believe you need constitutional agreements to please Quebec I think that we in english speaking Canada need to make changes to our part of the country before we can discuss bringing Quebec into the constitution.

   

self censored

   

So michou what are you trying to say. Canada needs it's own Quiet Revolution then perphaps quebecers wouldn't be so passionate about seperation?

   

The French fought wars against the Iroqoius!!! <br /> <br />Anyway, Kish if it's not written that it does not hold true all the time. For example after the American revolution it was just an excepted rule that George Washington set out that no president would serve more than two terms. That's how FDR was able to serve 4. Afterwards it was actually written into law and that is why George W. Bush won't be president until 2012. It's inevitable that the Liberals will fall one day and the new "Tories" will take power, but what if they haven't dumped Harper and the other former Reformers and become progressive by that time. What if there just as un-Canadian and dangerous as they are right now???? <br /> <br />A written constitution can gaurentuee EVERYBODY the liberties, programs, benefits, unity, progress, sovereignty and stability that we all deserve as a nation! BTW were going to have to open up the Constitution anyway to grant the Yukon, NWT and Nunavut provincial status, or if we ever change the Senate, adopt a proportional system or invite the Turks and Cacoas to join Canada. So well were in there, we don't we get rid of the other kinks??? <br /> <br />I am actually VERY impressed with Macarc's idea of a non-partisan Senate, I think it would serve us greatly. One legislative chamber might work well for Sweden or Norway, but this is Canada and when our nation was founded our founding fathers intended us to have democratic checks and balances. A second chamber is not a waste, unless you consider democracy to be a waste!!!! <br /> <br />Well have to hold a referendum, but this time around during the negotiations EVERY Canadian party (not meaning only political associations, but all people) must be present and have an equal say if this is to truely represent the views and values of Canadians. Trudeau might have paid lip service to the views of Canadians, but that won't be good enough, not for me or anyone else I'm sure!

   

I agree that a second chamber is a good idea, especially in Canada where we don't have much experience with democracy. However, I do recommend you do some research on the senate and you will quickly find that they have only been useful during the years when an opposition party held power. This is why many make the reasonable argument that Canada has essentially been a one party system. <br /> I do not agree about the constitution argument. The important question is always where power lies, and in a democracy it's a given that power should rest with the people. In the states you are incorrect of your analysis. George Bush won't be president simply because so many people despise him so much. In the states their revolution left the power in the hands of the people. If they chose, they could have an amendment which would once again get rid of term limits. Amendments though need to be passed by 2/3 of the legislatures, and there are enough states in the US where constitutional amendments must be ratified by citizens and there is no way that would pass. <br /> If you read Switzerlands constitution it is probably one of the shortest in the world. In Canada we have a lot of freedoms. Most of the things I think 'should' be done can be done within the general framework we currently have. Courts have been after the government for decades to actually make laws of effect.