A nation that refuses to distinguish between citizens and non-citizens cannot meaningfully defend its borders, its institutions, or its social trust, and that ultimately is the issue here. If immigration status itself becomes constitutionally suspect, then the entire concept of nationality begins to unravel.
00:00:00.000Discrimination is actually a good thing. Let me explain.
00:00:02.400Last week, the Supreme Court of Canada issued a deeply troubling decision
00:00:05.400in the name of what it calls social justice.
00:00:07.860The court ruled that it's unconstitutional for provinces to deny certain social services
00:00:12.060to asylum claimants whose immigration status has not yet been determined.
00:00:15.700The case first arose in 2018, when an asylum claimant from the Democratic Republic of Congo
00:00:19.760was denied access to Quebec's heavily subsidized daycare program because of her immigration status.
00:00:24.640Now, it's worth noting that this program is already extraordinarily generous.
00:00:28.000It's not only open to Canadian citizens, but also permanent residents, foreign workers, international students, and asylum seekers whose claims have been approved.
00:00:36.360Most reasonable people would agree that this already goes above and beyond what many countries would offer, but the activist judges on the court disagreed.
00:00:43.700Six out of the seven justices concluded that this policy violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
00:00:48.660Chief Justice Richard Wagner even described the situation as discrimination based off of immutable characteristics.
00:00:54.820But asylum status is obviously not immutable.
00:00:57.620Unlike race or sex, asylum status is temporary and conditional.
00:01:01.500These individuals were not asylum claimants before entering Canada.
00:01:04.360Their status may change entirely depending on the outcome of their claim.
00:01:07.940They may become permanent residents, they may become citizens,
00:01:10.740or their claim might be rejected and they may be required to leave the country.
00:01:13.900In other words, asylum status is precisely the type of category that governments must be able to distinguish between.
00:01:19.440Because discrimination, properly understood, is not inherently evil.
00:01:23.160It is simply the act of making distinctions.
00:01:25.280Every functioning society depends on it.
00:01:27.160A footrace to determine who's the fastest is discrimination.
00:01:30.200Selecting the most qualified person for a job is discrimination.
00:01:33.400Allowing your family members into your home while refusing entry to strangers is discrimination.
00:01:37.960In many circumstances, discrimination is not merely acceptable, it's a moral obligation.
00:01:42.600A nation that refuses to distinguish between citizens and non-citizens
00:01:45.960cannot meaningfully defend its borders, its institutions, or its social trust.
00:01:49.720And that ultimately is the issue here.
00:01:51.560The ideological premise behind decisions like this
00:01:54.040is that society must treat all individuals as interchangeable abstractions.
00:01:58.460That any distinction between people, no matter how practical or necessary, is morally suspect.
00:02:03.820But citizenship itself is a form of discrimination.
00:02:06.800It determines who a government represents, who can vote in elections,
00:02:09.800who is entitled to the benefits of the political community.
00:02:12.140If immigration status itself becomes constitutionally suspect,
00:02:15.100then the entire concept of nationality begins to unravel.
00:02:18.400This problem did not begin with this decision.
00:02:20.380It began in 1982 with the repatriation of Canada's constitution and the introduction of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms under Pierre Trudeau.
00:02:27.700For most of our history, Canada operated under a principle known as parliamentary supremacy.
00:02:32.380Elected legislators made laws and courts interpreted them, but they did not rewrite the social contract of the nation.
00:02:37.640The Charter fundamentally altered that balance.
00:02:39.980It shifted immense political power away from Parliament and into the hands of the judiciary,
00:02:44.020allowing unelected judges to override legislation on the basis of revolving interpretations of
00:02:49.740abstract rights. In effect, it imported into Canada a more American-style system of
00:02:54.760constitutional politics, where courts increasingly function as the ultimate arbiter's public policy.