00:00:00.000You had a pretty devastating piece in the National Post a few weeks ago about the Charter.
00:00:05.040We know that we just celebrated the 40th anniversary.
00:00:08.080And I wanted to ask you about it while I have you.
00:00:11.580You wrote, after 40 years, the Charter is still one of the worst bargains in Canadian history.
00:00:16.700So I'm wondering if you can explain to the viewers why you don't have a lot of faith in that document.
00:00:23.260I think one of the cornerstones of Canada is our federal structure, which allows, we're this huge country, 10 different provinces plus the territories, huge, huge country, relatively small population.
00:00:45.320And the question is, you know, do you want to be governed by people who live and work in your province, who go to the capital?
00:00:53.460Or do you want to be governed by people that you've never heard of, they've never heard of you, they live in Ottawa, again, at the risk of being politically incorrect, at least for those of us in the West, everybody in Ottawa, in the bureaucracy there is bilingual, we're not very bilingual out West.
00:01:10.880Federalism, the ability for the different provinces to be self-governing, I think has been a big part of the success of Canada.
00:01:19.200The charter changed that, and Trudeau did it on purpose, that he brought in a set of new rules enforced by, ultimately by one body, the Supreme Court of Canada, which the prime minister gets to make all the appointments to.
00:01:35.920Six of the nine judges come, three from Quebec, three from Ontario, appointed by the prime minister.
00:02:01.700So, in effect, what the charter has become is what I said in the piece, that disallowance in disguise.
00:02:11.220Remember, again, at Confederation in 1867, the MacDonald wing of the founders wanted a much, much stronger central government.
00:02:20.980And they gave these powers of disallowance and reservation to the federal government.
00:02:25.540Within 30 years, those fell into disuse because they were simply inconsistent with the nature of Canada, our diversity, our size, and everything else.
00:02:36.340And so this ability for Ottawa to reach out and veto provincial legislation they don't like was taken away.
00:02:43.820Unfortunately, the charter has brought that back because the judges have interpreted the charter in such a loose way.
00:02:52.240They can basically get any conclusion they want out of almost every charter case.
00:02:58.900And, of course, then there's the Court Challenges Program, which I mentioned, which funds the groups that liberals like who want legislation, liberal legislation.
00:03:07.900To Stephen Harper's credit, he defunded, he stopped funding the Court Challenges Program.
00:03:13.680But as soon as Trudeau came back in, he started the funding again.
00:03:17.520So the liberals fund the groups on the left, the woke group, the identity politics people, the people who can't win, can't win these political victories through elections, provincially.
00:03:32.780But the Court Challenges Program gives them the money, they go to the court, they go to the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court has been appointed by prime ministers, and they get the policy result they want.
00:03:44.420So from a point of view of federalism, it's really disallowance and disguise, and it's been, again, a really bad deal for those of us who think that all Canadians are best served if the decisions we have to live with are made by people in the provincial capital who come from our neighborhoods, who understand our problems,
00:04:06.800who know about shortage of schools, who know about shortage of schools, water issues, traffic issues, employment issues, job issues, housing issues, not people in Ottawa who've certainly, again, out West, people who've never even been out West.
00:04:24.160They're, and I'm including in this both the bureaucrats and the Supreme Court judges.
00:04:29.620That's, that's, Canada did better before that, I think we can do better again, and I'm hoping with, but we haven't talked about the federal leadership race, Conservative Party leader, but I'm certainly hoping some of the candidates there will embrace the idea of a more decentralized Canada going forward.