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61 Can. B. Rev. 30 (1983)
The Political Purposes of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

handle is hein.journals/canbarev61 and id is 36 raw text is: THE POLITICAL PURPOSES OF THE CANADIAN CHARTER OF RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS PETER H. RUSSELL* Toronto As we begin to perceive the effects of The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it is important to bear in mind the political purposes for making this change in our Constitution. Two primary purposes can be indentified. For the political leaders who were the Charter's chief sponsors, national unity was the main rationale for insisting on placing the Charter at the top of the constitutional reform agenda. The second purpose was the conviction that a Charter will better protect rights and freedoms. Belief in this purpose is the main explanation for widespread public support of the Charter. National unity, it was thought, would be strengthened by the Charter's symbolic effects and particularly by its provisions concerning mobility and lan- guage rights. An examination of these expectations suggests that they were somewhat unrealistic. The Charter's most important unifying consequences will more likelyflowfrom a dimension of entrenching rights about which the Charter's political sponsors were, for the most part, silent-namely, the national policy making role the Supreme Court will assume as the final arbiter of the Charter. In believing the second purpose, the Canadian public were victims of false advertising. Fundamental rights and freedoms are not zero-sum entities which citizens either possess in their entirety or not at all. In all liberal democracies, limits are placed on the extent to which fundamental rights and freedoms are enjoyed. The Charter's principle effect is to change the way in which decisions about these limits are made. There is no guarantee that this new decision-making system, in which judicial review plays a central role, will result in better or even in more liberal decisions about these limits. Now that the Charter is in force, Canadians must overcome the baby talk used to sell it and learn to address the potentialities of the Charter more realistically. Maintenant que nous commenvons i percevoir les effets de la Charte canadienne des droits et libertds, il est important de tenir compte des desseins politiques qui ont amen. ) rialiser ce changement dans notre Constitution; on peut en retenir deux principaux. 1. Aux yeux des leaders politiques quifurent les principaux promoteurs de la Charte, la principale raison de leur insistance i lafairefigurer parmi les priorits de la reforme constitutionnelle &tait qu'elle permettrait de parvenir a l'unitj nationale. 2. L'autre objectif portait a croire que la Charte protegerait plus efficacement les droits et liberts; c'est de cette conviction qu'est ne le vaste appui du public canadien 6 cette Charte. L'unit nationale, pensait-on, serait renforcie grdce aux effets symboliques de la Charte, en particulier par ses dispositions portant sur la libertj de circula- * Peter H. Russell, of the Department of Political Science, University of Toronto, Toronto.

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