alt Hacker NewsCanadians have no rights that the government can't override, unlike the US where the Constitution grants God-given rights over and above the government. Pierre Trudeau built in a safeguard so that the Canadian government or provinces can override whatever rights they want as they deem fit. They also have the War Measures Act or the Emergencies Act which they've also used to override any rights that Canadians have.
But none of that matters if Canadians just allow politicians to impose laws that strip them of their rights to avoid mass surveillance. Who needs a Charter of Rights if Canadians don't care enough about their rights to protest the government when they try to strip away their rights?
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While it's true that Section 33 of the Charter can override other sections, it cannot override _all_ of them; and the Emergencies Act is roughly equivalent in effect to the USA's ability to deploy the National Guard. It allows the Federal Government to deploy our military to handle emergencies when it is apparent that Provincial and local services are unable to handle them.
>unlike the US where the Constitution grants God-given rights over and above the government.
Why don't you ask the folks in towns riddled with ICE agents how well those god-given rights are being respected. Your main point stands about infringement of freedoms and privacy, but your interpretation, or hallucination that anywhere is actually abiding by their founding principals is wildly naive.
The government will always override it's citizens rights and freedoms if it has it's power challenged. 2nd amendment collapsed in California when Black Panthers decided arming themselves was a great way to push back on kkkops. 1st and 14th amendment rights get trampled and attacked at just about any protest in history.
You can talk about ideals until your blue in the face but governments have always done whatever they want and almost never face repercussion. Anything that challenges the government keeping us in place as servants of capital is met with violence and incarceration. Any social progress comes at the cost of innocent blood being spilled to make the situation distasteful enough that the government minimally acquiesces as it keeps marching down the same path it always has.
Except that's not really true, is it? It may be the flavour-text of US tradition that the government is protecting your rights rather than bestowing them, but the outcome is the same. Nor is the US government particularly fastidious about protecting them: one need only ask the average person of colour whether they feel equally protected under the law.
It is your Declaration of Independence that recognises inalienable rights endowed by one's creator, not the Constitution, and is thus legally unenforceable. We know this because none of the rights enshrined in the Constitution are actually inalienable. For example: the First Amendment says that Congress can make no law prohibiting the right to peacefully assemble... but then how does federal incarceration work? The US has one of the largest mass-surveillance apparatuses in the world despite the Fourth Amendment. The President has also attempted to end birthright citizenship via decree, something which your Supreme Court is currently entertaining instead of immediately overturning as patently unconstitutional.
There's a common refrain that rights do not exist without remedies. Whether rights are given by one's deity or by one's government is immaterial: if you cannot remedy a violation of a right, that right does not exist. While I can certainly agree that certain systems do not entrench rights as much as they should (here in the UK, all our rights persist at the whims of a simple majority), words on a page matter less than access to remedies.
Ya, how's that constitution concept working out for the USA?
> the Constitution grants God-given rights over and above the government.
Which are they: God-given or granted by the constitution? No-one in any country has rights that cannot be taken away.
I'm not sure why you are holding the US as a shining example here. There has been a long history of warrantless searches everyone knows about.
And why are you making false claims about the Canadian constitution? You can easily check that the scope of the notwithstanding clause is limited.