David Clinton
Is Canada Abusing the Charter of Rights and Freedoms?
Canadians have no absolute right to equal treatment under the law.
Monitoring the intersection between equality and equity
Let me explain that. Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was, from the perspective of the Charter’s creators, an exceedingly difficult needle to thread. The tension between its two subsections carries the potential for confusion and even abuse. Here’s the text itself:
(1) Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
(2) Section (1) does not preclude any law, program or activity that has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups including those that are disadvantaged because of race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.
15(1) guaranteed the equal treatment of all individuals. That’s something I can’t imagine any reasonable-minded person opposing. The problem was that, at the same time, the authors also wanted to leave room for unfair treatment for select groups through affirmative action programs. That’s the purpose of 15(2).
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If 15(2) didn’t exist, challenges to, say, hiring practices targeting historically disadvantaged racial groups could be launched based on the rights found in 15(1). Imagine people who didn’t technically qualify as disadvantaged but who might be better suited for and in greater immediate need of an advertised job. If the “affirmative action” candidate was nevertheless hired, couldn’t the others argue that they’d just suffered Charter-level discrimination? 15(2) is designed to ensure such challenges don’t happen.
Such state-imposed inequality may or may not be justifiable. That’s a debate that doesn’t interest me right now. Instead, my primary focus is on how the principle could be widely abused.
I should clarify that these rules only apply to government programs and agencies. While private companies might be bound by other areas of related law, the Charter was only written for government operations. But it’s nevertheless worth remembering that 4.4 million Canadians work for one level or another of government (when you include hospitals and public schools). That’s around 21 percent of all Canadian workers. And many more of us interact with governments regularly.
What kinds of abuse are possible? Well, consider how so many equality-related decisions are highly subjective and rely on the good faith and clarity of mind of the policy makers and public officials in positions of power. In that context:
- How can we know that factors like “ameliorative”, “disproportionate”, or “disadvantaged” are accurately and appropriately defined?
- How can we know that favoring one group won’t cause deep and irreparable harm to others?
- How can we know that even good-faith decisions aren’t made based on outdated assumptions or inaccurate stereotypes?
Easy-to-imagine practical examples of abuse could include:
- Provincial scholarship programs that target low-income students from only certain ethnic groups while excluding members of other groups who might currently experience even greater financial hardship.
- Seats in highly competitive university programs that are restricted to only candidates expressing specified identities without objective evidence that such individuals are currently meaningfully underrepresented in those programs or professional fields.
- Government-funded employment programs that subtly target communities likely to share particular political beliefs.
- Internal career advancement policies that prioritize identity and ethnicity over competence that lead to reduced organizational capacity.
- Social disruption due to arbitrary official favoritism for some ethnicities and identities over others.
Of course, misuse of 15(2) can always be tested in court. Programs are, after all, expected to pass the Oakes Test (for objectives that are pressing and substantial) and the Kapp Test (for goals that are truly ameliorative and appropriately targeted).
But that requires someone who notices the problem and has the considerable means necessary to launch a court challenge. There aren’t many people like that running around.
A government that felt that misuse of the law was causing significant damage to society could choose to by-pass 15(2) altogether by invoking the Notwithstanding Clause or by amending the constitution itself. But…well, good luck surviving either attempt.
More realistically, the government could write new legislation that guides the interpretation or application of 15(2). That could mean carefully defining what constitutes an “ameliorative program” or setting clear eligibility criteria for such programs. There would be no need to change the constitution, simply to properly define it.
Alternatively, governments could govern by example. This might mean tailoring their own policies and programs to reflect a more constrained interpretation of 15(2). They could actively participate in court cases to advocate for particular interpretations and present compelling arguments to influence how courts understand and apply the provision.
Finally, of course, they could appoint judges to the Supreme Court and federal courts who are more aligned with values associated with absolute equality under the law.
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Crime
Despite recent bail reform flip-flops, Canada is still more dangerous than we’d prefer
Our Criminal Justice System Is Changing
58 percent of individuals sentenced to community supervision had at least one prior conviction for a violent offence. 68 percent of those given custodial sentences were similarly repeat offenders. In fact, 59 percent of offenders serving custodial sentences had previously been convicted at least 10 times.
Back in 2019, the federal Liberals passed Bill C-75, “An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Youth Criminal Justice Act and other Acts”. Among other things, the law established a Principle of Restraint that required courts to minimize unnecessary pre-trial detention. This has been characterized as a form of “catch and release” that sacrifices public safety in general, and victims’ rights in particular on the altar of social justice.
I’m no lawyer, but I can’t see how the legislation’s actual language supports that interpretation. In fact, as we can see from the government’s official overview of the law, courts must still give serious consideration to public safety:
The amendments…legislate a “principle of restraint” for police and courts to ensure that release at the earliest opportunity is favoured over detention, that bail conditions are reasonable, relevant to the offence and necessary to ensure public safety, and that sureties are imposed only when less onerous forms of release are inadequate.
So unlike in some U.S. jurisdictions, Canadian courts are still able use their discretion to restrict an accused’s freedom. That’s not to say everyone’s always happy with how Canadian judges choose to use such discretion, but judicial outcomes appear to lie in their hands, rather than with legislation.
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Arguably, C-75 did come with a “soft-on-crime” tone (in particular as the law relates to certain minority communities). But even that was mostly reversed by 2023’s Bill C-48, which introduced reverse onus for repeat offenders and required judges to explicitly consider the safety of the community (whatever that means).
Nevertheless, the system is clearly far from perfect. Besides the occasional high-profile news reports about offenders committing new crimes while awaiting trials for previous offences, the population-level data suggests that our streets are not nearly as safe as they should be.
As far as I can tell, Statistics Canada doesn’t publish numbers on repeat offences committed by offenders free while waiting for trial. But I believe we can get at least part of the way there using two related data points:
- Conviction rates
- Repeat offender rates
Between 2019 and 2023, conviction rates across Canada on homicide charges for adults averaged 42 percent, while similar charges against youth offenders resulted in convictions in 65 percent of cases. That means we can safely assume that a significant proportion of accused offenders were, in fact, criminally violent even before reaching trial.
We can use different Statistics Canada data to understand how likely it is that those accused offenders will re-offend while on pre-trial release:
58 percent of individuals sentenced to community supervision (through either conditional sentences or probation) had at least one prior conviction for a violent offence. 68 percent of those given custodial sentences were similarly repeat offenders. In fact, 59 percent of offenders serving custodial sentences had previously been convicted at least 10 times.
Also, in the three years following a term of community supervision, 15.6 percent of offenders were convicted for new violent crimes. For offenders coming out of custodial sentences, that rate was 30.2 percent.
In other words:
- Many – if not most – people charged with serious crimes turn out to be guilty
- It’s relatively rare for violent criminals to offend just once.
Together, those two conclusions suggest that public safety would be best served by immediately incarcerating all people charged with violent offences and keeping them “inside” either until they’re declared innocent or their sentences end. That, however, would be impossible. For one thing, we just don’t have space in our prisons to handle the load (or the money to fund it). And it would also often trample on the legitimate civil rights of accused individuals.
This is a serious problem without any obvious pull-the-trigger-and-you’re-
- Implement improved risk assessment and predictive analytics tools to evaluate the likelihood of re-offending.
- Improve the reliability of non-custodial measures such as electronic monitoring and house arrest that incorporate real-time tracking and immediate intervention capabilities
- Improve parole and probation systems to ensure effective monitoring and support for offenders released into the community. (Warning: expensive!)
- Optimize data analytics to identify trends, allocate resources efficiently, and measure the effectiveness of various interventions.
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David Clinton
How would provinces and cities survive if the federal government collapsed?
How Resilient Are Canadian Provinces?
Suppose one fine day the federal government was unable to show up for work. Perhaps it wasn’t feeling well. Or maybe it had borrowed so much money that it maxed out its line of credit, defaulted on its interest payments, and just couldn’t pay its bills. What then?
Let’s say – and I’m just spitballing here – let’s say that exploding, uncontrolled public debt is a bad thing. All the smart people tell us that taking on too much credit card debt won’t end well, right? Well I can’t think of any solid reason that such logic shouldn’t also apply to governments.¹
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As you can see from the graph, our federal public debt climbed from $351 billion in 1990 all the way to $884 billion in 2024. The 50 percent leap between Q4 2019 and Q4 2021 was the generous gift of COVID. Things started to recover in mid-2023, but they’ve since nose dived once again.
Ah, but that’s just debt you say. It’s someone else’s problem.
Not exactly. You see, even if we’re not paying down the principle on the debt, you can be sure that we’re covering interest payments. Which, it just so happens, have become a lot more expensive ever since massive government borrowing drove up interest rates.
How much more expensive? As of Q1 2024, our annual interest payments totaled $11.7 billion, compared with $6.2 billion back in Q1 2022. Put differently, the interest we pay each year comes to seven percent of our total federal budget.
I’m certainly not going to confidently predict that the federal government will soon default on interest payments, lose access to capital markets, and begin laying off government workers and shutting down services. But I wouldn’t say that it can’t happen either.
Given that possibility, what can provinces and cities do right now to prepare for a sudden (hopefully brief) disruption? First off, though, what exactly is a province?
As defined by the British North America Acts, areas of the exclusive responsibility of the federal government include:
- Public debt and property
- Regulation of trade and commerce
- Criminal law
- Militia, military and naval service, and defense
- Navigation and shipping
- Banking, incorporation of banks, and the issue of paper money
- Bankruptcy and insolvency
- Naturalization and aliens
- Unemployment insurance
Provinces are responsible for:
- Property and civil rights
- Administration of justice (including policing)
- Municipal institutions
- Education
- Health and welfare
- Natural resources
So a short-term federal disruption might not have much of an impact on most Canadians’ day-to-day activities. Federal employees and UI recipients would have to figure out how to survive without their paychecks and border entry points would shut down. But great news! Your criminal prosecution can go ahead on schedule because, while criminal law is controlled by the feds, lower criminal courts are provincial.
On the other hand, consider how federal transfers contribute between around 15 percent (Alberta) and 40 percent (Atlantic provinces) of provincial budgets. And Toronto’s municipal budget, for instance, includes around 15 percent in transfers from the province, and another five percent from the federal government. So it wouldn’t take long before all levels of government begin to feel the heat.
I’m not suggesting we change Canadian federalism (good luck trying). But a province that’s reduced or eliminated its own budget deficit and successfully weaned itself from incoming federal transfers would probably enjoy a smoother trip through a shutdown. Exploring the legality of temporarily taking over the payroll for critical federal roles (like Border Services), for instance, might also pay dividends when push came to shove.
I would suggest that thinking formally about these issues would be an important part of any government’s emergency planning preparedness. Yesterday was the best time to start. But today is the next best option.
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Post-COVID, the claims of Modern Monetary Theory proponents didn’t age well.
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