Magna Carta versus Canadian Charter

Janet Epp Buckingham

June 1, 2015

An 800-year-old medieval document written in Latin began the process of protecting freedom by ensuring even sovereignty was subject to courts of law. Do Canada's courts now need a reigning in of their own?

So, in addition to being the foundation for democracy, the Magna Carta is also the foundation for the rule of law and a fair and impartial justice system — all essential elements of our democratic system "In a constitutional democracy, the judicial branch of government is entrusted to rule on whethe...

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The State of Religious Freedom

Albertos Polizogopoulos

June 1, 2015

Canada has come through a hard decade of judicial assaults on religious freedom, but Ottawa lawyer Albertos Polizogopoulos argues that four strong judgments this spring point to signs of new life for Canadian faith in common life

Although not all of the six freedom of religion cases before the Supreme Court in the past eight years have dealt with competing rights between religious freedom and other Charter rights, the expanded interpretation of section 15 by the courts, particularly the Supreme Court of Canada, has contribut...

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The Terminus of Tolerance

Don Hutchinson

June 1, 2015

In distorting legal tradition to accommodate same-sex marriage a decade ago, writes Don Hutchinson, Canadian courts may have signed the death certificate for our understanding of true tolerance as well

Along with the new human rights protocols, in the latter part of the 20th century Canadian laws were amended to correct the historic injustice that had seen widespread discrimination against Canadians who are gay, which included the criminalization of sodomy until 1969 It was the dawn of Canada's ea...

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Carter, Charter, and Magna Carta

André Schutten

June 1, 2015

In striking down laws against physician-assisted suicide, the Supreme Court of Canada used the Charter of Rights to eviscerate 800 years of legal wisdom first captured in the Great Charter—or Magna Carta—and based on the immutable link between God and the rule of law.

The appellants, in their successful bid to strike down Canada's absolute prohibition on assisted suicide, argued not only that the prohibition violated the right to life, liberty and security of the person (protected under section 7 of the Charter) but also that it violated the section 15 equality r...

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A Court of Many Colours

Ray Pennings

June 1, 2015

In the Biblical story of Joseph's coat, Cardus Executive Vice President Ray Pennings finds both justification and a cautionary tale for Canada's ermine-cloaked Supreme Court justices

However, not only the Court but the prevailing media narrative surrounding the Court's decision has evolved into a story of the courts competing with the government for primacy The majority of the Court struck down Parliament's law, relying on an argument of a "reasonable hypothetical," since neithe...

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The Place of Healing Mercy

Diane Weber Bederman

June 1, 2015

To become fully human, Diane Weber Bederman reminds us, we must give our animal lust for vengeance to the God who loves

If we tell ourselves that vengeance belongs to God, we can, over time, let go of the rage, the anger, the poison of hatred that enslaves us to those who have caused our pain, and so provide ourselves a space for a healthier view of life It is — as Moses taught the Israelites in the great song he san...

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Looking in the Devil's Lies

Tim McCauley

June 1, 2015

In his review of Father Robert Wild's Jousting with the Devil: Chesterton's Battle with the Father of Lies, Father Tim McCauley finds the means to bring the reality of Beelzebub back into civilized conversation.

As mentioned, Chesterton's encounter with black magic made him more aware of the devil and of supernatural realities, to the point where Wild proposes Chesterton as the patron saint of converts from neo-paganism " Chesterton obviously trusts the gospels and Christ's own testimony to the existence of...

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Too Far to Bridge

Richard Bastien

June 1, 2015

William Gairdner's The Great Divide: Why Liberals and Conservatives Will Never, Ever Agree is a must-read, argues Convivium book review editor Richard Bastien, for anyone interested in making sense of things as citizens and as ethical beings.

In this latest book, Gairdner seeks to clarify the underlying differences between liberals and conservatives, the words liberal and conservative being used not in the usual political sense but rather to describe a cultural and moral divide that has been growing and deepening below the surface of ord...

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Sea to Sea: Michael Coren's Conversions

Raymond J. de Souza

June 1, 2015

Father Raymond J. de Souza's continuing survey of religion, culture and public life. In this edition, why the author of Why Catholics Are Right turns his cheek on Catholicism.

In relation to Catholic teaching about contraception, the epicentre of the sexual revolution, Coren wrote four years ago in Why Catholics Are Right that the conflict went to the heart of the place of faith in our common life Peter wrote a generous review, acknowledging that Coren's book did not argu...

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Put testing to the test

Beth Green

May 29, 2015

We cannot test all the things that enable progress and good development towards a flourishing life, but perhaps we can measure some of them and actually gain helpful knowledge about the health of the education system as a whole Over coffee, I thought about how the system has enough data now to make ...

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All that glitters is not gold

John Seel

May 22, 2015

But these dichotomies may depend on a certain, naturally dichotomizing, “either/or,” view of the world and may cease to be problematic in the world delivered by the right hemisphere, where what appears to the left hemisphere to be divided is unified, where concepts are not separated from experience,...

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How to develop effective servant leaders

Peter O'Donnell

May 20, 2015

In a generation inclined to shrink away from leadership, can change and innovation take place? How can we help Millennials become the kind of authentic leaders that not only achieve results, but also build up others to multiply their influence? When I think of authentic leaders, I think of people wh...

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Taking Care of Our Own

Doug Sikkema

May 15, 2015

One of the striking things in many of the reports is that a lot of Canadians want to be taken care of by their own—that is, taken care of by their spouses, children, family, or friends The system has failed to create new and better programs and to financially prop up natural caregivers with better C...

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Law, Design, and the Human Habitat: Part II

Milton Friesen

May 13, 2015

By the end of the day, working amid the street noise, sun, and constant collegial exchanges, we had decided which streets would form the A level street network (best for pedestrian, exchange, and intensity), which would be the B level network (used for delivering freight and moving cars), what the l...

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Law, Design, and the Human Habitat: Part I

Milton Friesen

May 12, 2015

As teams we spent time debating, puzzling, and sketching how the SmartCode could guide a strongly human-centered design structure that would support long-term vitality for this part of Dallas over the coming years and decades ...

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