Juno News - How has the Charter of Rights and Freedoms changed Canada？ (Ft. The Hon. Brian Peckford)

00:00:00.000 The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is 40 years old this year. How has this document

00:00:05.560 changed our country? How has it changed Canada? Well, joining me today is one of the original

00:00:10.280 signers of the Charter, the Honorable Brian Peckford. I'm Candice Malcolm, and this is

00:00:14.780 the Candice Malcolm Show. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into the program.

00:00:30.740 So as we've been talking about all over the news, everybody celebrating the Charter, looking

00:00:34.540 back at the past 40 years, looking back at the history of the signing of the Charter,

00:00:38.340 we thought what better way to talk about that momentous occasion in Canadian history than

00:00:43.580 inviting the only living signer of that document to join the podcast to walk us through what

00:00:49.440 happened, tell us the story, and help us understand why this document was so needed. So joining

00:00:54.980 me today is the Honorable Brian Peckford. Mr. Peckford served as the Progressive Conservative

00:01:00.280 Premier of Newfoundland, Labrador from 1979 to 1989. He's the last living signatory of

00:01:06.340 the Charter. Also as Premier, his government established the Atlantic Accord, which brought

00:01:11.060 offshore oil and gas revenues to the province that ultimately shifted the province's fortunes,

00:01:15.700 economic fortunes, from being a perpetual have-not province, which takes money from the federal

00:01:20.720 government, to shifted that, transformed it into a strong performing province that is a

00:01:26.520 have-province, which means that they contribute more than they take out. Mr. Peckford is the author

00:01:31.280 of the book, Someday the Sun Will Shine and Have-Not Will Become No More, beautifully titled memoir

00:01:37.300 about his time as premier, and the triumph to have control over the province's natural resources.

00:01:43.860 Brian currently serves as the chair of both the board of directors and the advisory board of

00:01:48.020 Taking Back Your Freedoms, an organization formed last year to equip and mobilize citizens towards

00:01:53.160 taking back their constitutional and God-given freedoms. Over the past year, Mr. Peckford has become

00:01:58.960 a symbol of Canada's opposition to government overreach in response to COVID-19. Mr. Peckford is a very

00:02:05.680 popular speaker. He has spoken to thousands of people at freedom rallies in his home province,

00:02:09.920 his now home province, of British Columbia, and was a supporter of the Freedom Convoy protests in

00:02:15.780 Ottawa. Peckford is also suing the federal government, and hopefully we will talk to him a

00:02:20.260 little bit about this. This is over the federal government's vaccine mandate with regards to air

00:02:24.800 travel, and he's working with our friends over at the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms

00:02:29.420 on that. So all that is to just say, Brian, it's a tremendous honor to have you on the program,

00:02:34.380 and thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for having me too. I think it's

00:02:38.300 important for us all to speak up whenever we can as it relates to the freedoms that the Canadians are

00:02:45.820 supposed to enjoy. Well, that's the theme of the show. So many of the sort of stories that I've seen

00:02:52.720 talking about the Charter and looking back at its 40-year history and what happened 40 years ago,

00:02:57.880 unfortunately, they don't take a critical enough look at the ways that our freedoms have been,

00:03:03.300 in some ways, many ways eroded and neglected over the past few years. So hopefully we can get

00:03:08.300 into that conversation today. First off the bat, though, I just want to ask you, so take us back

00:03:13.360 40 years ago to the signing of the Constitution. What was the process? I know it was a long,

00:03:19.060 I think, 17-month ordeal negotiating many, many things, not just the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

00:03:23.900 So take us back 40 years. Why did Canada need a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and why did this

00:03:29.040 constitutional negotiation begin and get underway? Yes, well, thank you very much. Yeah,

00:03:34.780 Canada was formed as a country in 1867 with the BNA Act, the British North America Act,

00:03:41.600 which defined Canada and the nature of our government. In other words, that it would be a

00:03:46.360 federal government, not a unitary government. That means that powers would be shared between the

00:03:51.400 federal government and the provinces. There were only four provinces at the time that formed Canada,

00:03:56.440 upper and lower Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. So Canada started with four provinces,

00:04:02.060 not 10 provinces that it has today. And we grew into 10 provinces over time. Missing from that

00:04:08.940 document which formed Canada was anything to do with individual rights and freedoms. They were not

00:04:13.880 described in the BNA Act, which created Canada. We relied upon, because we came out of the British

00:04:21.000 system, the British common law, the unwritten British common law. And so from the 1867 until really 1960,

00:04:30.700 that's how Canadians defended their individual rights and freedoms. There was nothing written

00:04:34.960 in the constitution. If you look to the south of us, in the United States of America,

00:04:40.620 their country was formed in 1776, and they had a written Charter of Rights and Freedoms,

00:04:45.500 but Bill of Rights in 1791, only 15 years after they became a country. In our case, we formed a country

00:04:55.500 in 1867 and didn't get a written Charter until 1982, actually formalized in 1982. So there was,

00:05:04.060 through the part, early part of the 20th century after we became a country, various moves underfoot to

00:05:11.200 indicate that why don't we have a written Charter of Rights and Freedoms like the Americans? Why do we

00:05:16.860 depend upon unwritten British common law and the precedents that have been set over the years in the

00:05:24.820 courts? And that debate, you know, rose and fall over time. But up into the 1960s, it became more

00:05:34.820 pronounced in saying that something should be written as related to our individual rights and freedoms.

00:05:39.700 And that's when John Diefenbaker, who was the prime minister in 1960, introduced what we know as the

00:05:46.200 Bill of Rights. And, but there was two failings with that Bill of Rights. One was that it was just

00:05:51.980 a federal act and therefore only applied to federal jurisdiction and not to provincial jurisdiction.

00:05:57.680 So therefore, it never covered all Canadians, it only covered some Canadians. And after that 1960

00:06:04.240 Bill of Rights, there was a movement underfoot stronger than ever to try to put something in

00:06:11.240 writing in a constitution, not just a federal act or provincial act. So it would cover everybody in the

00:06:17.240 country and put it in writing and have something firm, identifiable, and easily to reference. And so,

00:06:27.240 through the six from the 60s on, there were the various talks, but it always got stymied and delayed

00:06:36.520 and canceled by a debate over an amending formula. In other words, if we amended the constitution and

00:06:45.800 brought in the Charter Rights and Freedoms and became totally independent and not having to go back to

00:06:51.400 England for any more amendments, how would we amend our own constitution into the future? And there was

00:06:57.400 great debate over that and nothing could be decided. But by 1980, there was a strong, strong movement from

00:07:04.600 the 1960s to do that. And so, in 1980, the first ministers of Canada, all the premiers and the prime

00:07:14.680 minister agreed to get together to see whether we could do two things really, patriate the constitution,

00:07:21.640 and also add a Charter of Rights and Freedoms once we patriated it, as well as a number of other items.

00:07:29.640 And so, we began to negotiate in 1980 and that culminated in 1981 with an agreement called the

00:07:40.600 Patriation Agreement, which became the Constitution Act of 1982. That was a long, tortuous negotiation of

00:07:48.600 17 months because it was interrupted by the Prime Minister of Canada at the time, who was Justin Trudeau's

00:07:55.400 father, Pierre Elliott Trudeau, who found that he discovered or he thought that provinces were being

00:08:02.600 too difficult. And so, he left the table and tried to patriate the constitution and bring in a Charter of

00:08:08.920 Rights and Freedoms and other changes on his own. And so, he passed a law in the House of Commons to do just

00:08:16.600 that and passed by the Senate and became a law of Canada that the government of Canada would go

00:08:21.720 ahead unilaterally, bring the constitution home from England for good, and attach a Charter of

00:08:28.520 Rights and Freedoms to it, as well as other changes. Well, the provinces objected to this because we're a

00:08:35.640 federal state and not a unitary state. And so, eight provinces opposed what he was doing, two provinces

00:08:41.640 stayed with the federal government. And so, we took him to court over this action. And we won that action

00:08:48.840 in the Supreme Court of Canada in September 1981. And the Supreme Court said that the Prime Minister of Canada and

00:08:55.080 the government of Canada could not unilaterally patriate the constitution and attach a Charter of Rights to

00:09:01.560 it on their own. They couldn't do it unilaterally. They could only do it through the provinces and with the

00:09:07.720 provinces. And so, the Prime Minister lost and he was forced then to come back to the table that he had

00:09:14.760 left. If in fact, we were going to get a Charter of Rights and Freedoms, if we're going to get

00:09:19.400 patriation, if we're going to get other things. And we succeeded after three days of final negotiations

00:09:27.560 on November 3rd, 4th and 5th as a result of a proposal that I, on behalf of Newfoundland, put

00:09:33.640 forward to the rest of the provinces. It was this proposal that was accepted on November the 5th

00:09:39.320 by all the First Ministers except Quebec. And the Supreme Court of Canada decision did not say that

00:09:46.840 you had to have unanimity in order to get a change. It said you had to have a lot of the provinces on

00:09:52.040 side. Of course, we had 9 out of 10. And so, therefore, that met the constitutional tests of

00:09:58.040 the Supreme Court of Canada. And therefore, we got the Patriation Agreement of 1981, which contained,

00:10:05.720 among other things, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which became the Constitution Act of 1982,

00:10:11.640 which means that this year is the 40th anniversary of the Charter and the other changes becoming law.

00:10:18.440 What is not understood by most Canadians is because now, under the pandemic situation, which has

00:10:24.680 occurred, and the violations of the Charter, is that people forget that the Charter of Rights and

00:10:31.000 Freedoms came into being as a result of a package. Not just the Charter of Rights was negotiated. It was

00:10:37.880 the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, patriation, bringing the Constitution home, Indigenous rights,

00:10:44.120 Native First Nations rights in Section 35, and the mending formula, regional economic expansion and

00:10:52.520 equalization, and minority language rights. So when people say to me, why didn't you put this in the

00:10:59.240 Charter or put that in the Charter or take that out? They don't seem to understand. We just weren't

00:11:03.400 negotiating the Charter. The Charter was part of a bargaining chip with other things that I just outlined in

00:11:11.000 it. But we did get freedoms for individuals, and we did get rights for individuals in Sections 2,

00:11:18.840 6, 7, and 15 of the Charter, which now are being highlighted because the governments of this nation,

00:11:25.800 through the pandemic measures, have seen fit to violate those sacred rights that were in that

00:11:32.040 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Okay, well thank you so much for that background and that history. It's

00:11:37.080 really helpful to sort of put it all together. I have an interesting anecdote because I went to study

00:11:41.160 in Australia, and one of the first things that we were told during this sort of orientation was,

00:11:45.800 you know, unlike in the U.S., unlike in Canada, we don't have a Bill of Rights. So you don't have

00:11:51.640 the same amendments to the Constitution that you have in the United States. You don't have the same

00:11:56.760 Charter of Rights and Freedoms as you do in Canada, and that might mean that you could get yourself

00:12:01.240 into trouble. That was sort of the context of the discussion we were having. But I remember talking to a

00:12:05.640 friend of mine who's in law school, and her perspective was that you don't need to have

00:12:10.200 your rights codified. That in fact, when you codify your rights and have them listed, not only does it

00:12:17.000 list what your rights are, but it limits what's not there. And so I'm wondering if you can sort of

00:12:21.800 comment on whether you think Canada is better off having a codified list of what our rights are,

00:12:28.520 like a piece of paper that you can uphold and you can take to court and you can use to justify,

00:12:33.160 or whether the ancient sort of, you know, common law tradition that Australia still uses, that the

00:12:37.960 British use, is a better approach. What do you think? I think Australia has, since your time, 0.66

00:12:44.920 now have some Bill of Rights in their Constitution. I just noted that the other day, a decision out of

00:12:54.600 Australia referred to it. And by the way, the wording is very much similar to the Charter of Rights and

00:12:59.480 freedoms. But to come to your main point of British common law and why a codified

00:13:05.880 charter is better than a uncodified list of rights, that's the problem you have with

00:13:13.320 unwritten rights and freedoms is that they are unwritten and therefore the interpretation can vary

00:13:20.840 over time with various precedents set by various judges. If you have something which is in writing and

00:13:27.960 it is a sentence, freedom of expression, freedom of speech, if you want, or freedom of religion or

00:13:34.520 freedom of conscience, that's it. And it's quite clear. If in fact you rely upon uncodified rights and

00:13:43.240 freedoms, then you're subject to the whims of a judiciary over centuries where one judge or one lawyer could

00:13:53.160 bring up, well, in this case it said yes. In this other case, I'm not so sure who said yes. And so

00:13:59.080 therefore, this can evolve over time and change over time. When many people believe that we need to have

00:14:09.480 fixed charter rights or Bill of Rights or fixed freedom rights in a constitution so that it's not up to the

00:14:19.560 whims of anybody whether it be parliament or judges to change according to their own biases at the time

00:14:27.960 in their own history at the time. That's one of the problems you have. It is a riskier proposition

00:14:34.040 to maintain a given right, given that it can change over time with various individuals, various judges. So I

00:14:41.080 think that's one of the most important factors which most of us at the time in 1980, 81 and 82

00:14:49.320 considered that it was necessary to have something that individual citizens could look to as saying,

00:14:57.960 we do have something that we can refer to immediately and understand. It's not just for the lawyers and for

00:15:04.040 the judges. It's for individual citizens to understand that they have certain constitutional rights

00:15:10.200 guaranteed in law, in the constitution, written down, and is not subject to the whims of history

00:15:18.360 or individuals over time. Interesting. That's a great point. I had Mr. John Carpe on the program

00:15:25.480 a couple of days ago talking about the charter. He runs the Justice Center, which I know you've done

00:15:29.640 some work with. And one of the sort of limits he said when he was talking about the charter, why it

00:15:34.840 doesn't always uphold our rights and freedoms the way that we want, is he talked about section one

00:15:40.280 of the charter, which says that the charter rights can be limited by law so long as those limits can

00:15:45.400 be shown to be reasonable in a free and democratic society. So that verbiage, that line at the beginning

00:15:51.800 sort of pretexts the constitution saying, if a government can prove it is reasonable in a free

00:15:58.040 and democratic society, that's justification and that can convince a court and a judge. Go ahead,

00:16:03.320 if you want to respond to that. Well, I think you left out the most important part of section one,

00:16:09.080 and that is, I'm an old English teacher, and if you read section one and they read it out,

00:16:16.440 the verb in that sentence is demonstrably justified within reasonable limits by law in a free and

00:16:23.080 democratic society. And a lot of lawyers since this came into being have tried to twist that meaning

00:16:30.920 and always just talk about reasonable limits. In that sentence, there is demonstrably justified.

00:16:39.000 Now, I make two arguments as it relates to section one. Unfortunately, I'm the old first

00:16:44.040 minister still alive who was there when this was written. The intent of section one was to apply

00:16:50.600 if the state was in peril, war, insurrection, or some other extreme event, which threatened the

00:16:58.680 existence of the state. That does not exist today, does not exist during the pandemic circumstance

00:17:05.400 of the last two years. And therefore, section one, in my view, does not even apply in this circumstance.

00:17:12.840 And intent is very important in jurisprudence. The courts very often look behind

00:17:19.480 the piece of legislation or the piece of law from the constitution and look behind it to say,

00:17:25.480 what was the intent of the founders? What was the intent of the creators of that section?

00:17:31.240 Well, I can tell the judge and I can tell the lawyers and I can tell Canada that as one of the

00:17:36.760 people who was there, that was the intent of section one. It was to be used only. That's why we

00:17:43.240 wanted it in the constitution. The constitution is more permanent than a piece of federal legislation

00:17:49.800 or a piece of provincial legislation. It was put there to be permanent and only to be changed in

00:17:55.720 the most extreme circumstances. We're not into that extreme circumstance. However, I go on to argue

00:18:03.160 in order to give, what shall I say, courtesy more than anything else. And to be fair,

00:18:10.440 I say to people, okay, for argument's sake, let's say that section one does apply in this pandemic

00:18:17.160 circumstance. And therefore the governments could go ahead and use section one. There are four tests

00:18:23.080 in section one, even if it does apply. And the most important test, contrary to what a lot of the

00:18:29.000 lawyers and others have been saying over the last two years is the test of demonstrably justify.

00:18:35.400 That's the verb in that sentence. That's the predominant operative phrase in that larger sentence.

00:18:41.320 Demonstrably justify within reasonable limits by law in a free and democratic society. Well, no government,

00:18:48.440 14 governments of Canada, 10 provinces, federal government, or the three territories have demonstrably

00:18:54.600 justified what they are doing under their mandates. They have not met the test of demonstrably justify.

00:19:02.520 Everybody in Canada who knows anything about public policy knows that when you use the words

00:19:07.880 demonstrably justify, and I remember when we put demonstrably in there to make it stronger,

00:19:13.320 not just justify. Most public policy makers know that means cost benefit analysis or some other

00:19:20.920 approach. How do you demonstrably justify what you're doing? You are government, that is. Well,

00:19:26.680 you try to find out whether what you're doing has more benefits than costs. And as we now know,

00:19:33.640 and have known for a long time, only about 90 or 100 days into this pandemic, that the cure was worse

00:19:41.240 than the disease, that all these pandemic measures that were brought in where people died because they

00:19:47.320 never got to see a doctor, delayed surgeries, suicide, you know, many families broken up and the like.

00:19:55.320 Dr. Douglas Allen of Simon Fraser University did a study in which he reviewed 80 other studies from

00:20:01.640 around the world as to whether there was the cost, whether the benefit was greater than the cost on these

00:20:09.320 measures. And he found out of 80 studies that no, it wasn't justified what they were doing. And this was

00:20:16.440 published in April, 2021, that study out of our own university in Canada by Douglas, Douglas Allen,

00:20:23.800 you're very seldom here telling the report. I wonder why. It's because his definitive, now nobody's ever

00:20:31.080 questioned the validity of the report. Nobody's ever questioned his methodology. The report is there

00:20:36.840 out public for anybody to read. And that's what it concluded. And he also said in that document

00:20:42.520 that 90 to 100 days after the pandemic was declared in like March 2020, it was clear to

00:20:52.280 policymakers and others that we have real problems here by implementing these mandates. It's very,

00:20:58.600 very negative. And so the test of section one has not been met, even if section one does apply.

00:21:06.360 And if you want to take it further, another test there was free and democratic society.

00:21:10.760 Well, a free and democratic society means that therefore parliamentary democracy.

00:21:15.720 That's what Canada means. When you say free and democratic society, we have parliaments all over

00:21:20.760 Canada. We have 14 of them. And therefore the parliaments should have been called and kept open,

00:21:27.320 not called just to give the government more power, but call and stayed open and a parliamentary committee

00:21:33.240 of that parliament established to review what the government was doing to see whether in fact

00:21:38.520 it was beneficial. And then they would have called in other people to the committee,

00:21:43.800 other than just a government scientist to get a broader view of this situation to see whether in

00:21:50.040 fact it was a valid thing to do at that time. They didn't do that. So my argument is that number one,

00:21:56.920 section one does not apply because it doesn't meet the intent. And I was there and I know what the intent

00:22:02.200 was, and that's why it was put in the constitution. And by the way, if you go down to section four

00:22:08.440 in the charter, which talks about extending the life of a parliament, if we're, if we have to,

00:22:15.400 under what conditions could you extend the parliament? War, insurrection if the state was in peril.

00:22:21.160 So that was what was on our minds. It was clear in section four, what was on our minds. It was a very

00:22:27.480 extreme event for section one to be triggered. And that extreme event does not exist today. But I go

00:22:33.880 on to say, as I said, in summary, that even if section one does apply, the governments of this

00:22:38.520 nation did not meet the two very important tests of the four, one demonstrably justify or within the

00:22:46.200 context of a free and democratic society. Well, thank you for making that important

00:22:50.920 clarification. I must've just been misreading the section one there, but I think, I think you really

00:22:57.320 robustly answered that question. But it does beg the next question, which is why the why, you know,

00:23:04.440 if the section one test wasn't met, how is it that the governments were able to steamroll so many of

00:23:10.760 the other rights that were written down in the charter? How did this play? How did it play out?

00:23:15.560 Why did it play out? How is it able to be the case in Canada? You know, as well as I do,

00:23:20.600 they just went ahead and did it. And nobody, well, what really happened, I guess, is that

00:23:26.680 early on the Imperial College of London in England issued a report which the White House in the

00:23:34.280 United States, with the parliament in Canada and all the world brought into this fear-mongering

00:23:41.800 that the Imperial College of London said, where millions were going to die. Some die in the streets.

00:23:47.480 They even talked about deaths in the streets of China at the time in Wuhan because of this virus and so

00:23:54.760 on. So a climate of fear was created very early on into this pandemic, which just about everybody

00:24:03.720 bought into, except myself and a few others. But a lot of people bought into this and this gave

00:24:11.560 the government's license, they thought, to go ahead and violate the freedoms and rights enshrined in the

00:24:19.240 Constitution of Canada. And unfortunately, so that's what happened really, is that a mass psychosis

00:24:26.520 overtook the society and people were very subservient once fear set in to going along with the

00:24:34.200 government narrative. So it goes to show, as we know from history, that very often leaders have

00:24:44.840 reached their own limits, the normal limits that apply to a government or to apply to a leader.

00:24:51.960 And this is what happened in this sense. And I've been fighting ever since to get this back,

00:24:56.600 to get it. Now, we must say that the fight is not over. And this is the other thing that people say,

00:25:03.800 well, the charter has been thrown out the window and that's the end of it. Well, if that was so,

00:25:08.840 then the courts of appeal of the provinces have not heard yet, nor has the Supreme Court of Canada.

00:25:15.160 It's the lower courts that have heard the cases so far and have ruled against us and ruled for the

00:25:20.440 governments. But the other point I must make is that the first words of the Constitution of the

00:25:26.280 charter are not section one, are not in section one. The first words of the charter, which therefore

00:25:33.640 comes before section one, and under which section one is to be considered, are this country was founded

00:25:40.920 on the principles of the supremacy of God and the rule of law. Now, if you put section one into that

00:25:48.760 context, what does the supremacy of God mean? Doesn't that mean inalienable rights, that the

00:25:54.360 rights that we possess as individuals don't even come from this faith in the first instance,

00:25:59.000 they come from the creator. And it's in that context that you must consider this charter.

00:26:05.720 Then what has happened in the lower courts, they've even ignored even mentioning the Supreme

00:26:11.080 supremacy of God and the rule of law in one case, in so far. And so, and I'm sure you have not heard

00:26:18.920 in a lot of the debates and a lot of the articles that you read very much attention to supremacy of

00:26:24.040 God and the rule of law. But it is the beginning of the charter and comes even before section one.

00:26:30.200 And once again, as a former English teacher, at the end of that sentence, it's not a period,

00:26:37.000 it's a colon. A colon has a meaning, a semicolon has a meaning, a period has a meaning, a comma has a meaning,

00:26:43.160 and they're all different. Well, colon means what follows, right? What comes after, right? That's

00:26:49.240 what a colon means. I am going to list the number of animals there is in the world, colon. I am going

00:26:55.800 to tell you who are the National Hockey League players in Canada, colon, right? What follows,

00:27:03.000 what comes after. Well, that's what this was delivered by us when we wrote that sentence,

00:27:09.880 is that all the other things that come after that sentence have to be considered in the light

00:27:15.720 of supremacy of God in the context of rule of law. This has been missing so far. And so it's my intention,

00:27:24.600 and many others with me, to point this out. So that by the time

00:27:29.720 the appeals get to the courts of appeal of the provinces, quite likely three or four provinces

00:27:34.920 for sure, and then on ultimately to the Supreme Court of Canada, that the justices will recognize

00:27:42.360 that what their fellow comrades did in the lower courts was not complete. They did not consider

00:27:49.800 seriously enough section one, nor did they consider seriously enough the preamble to the charter,

00:27:56.280 supremacy of God, and the rule of law. So the hockey game isn't over. We're in the latter part of the second period.

00:28:03.000 We've got the full third period to go, and that is the courts of appeal and the Supreme Court of Canada.

00:28:08.520 So I'm not giving up on the courts yet. I know a lot of people have, but I still insist that if Canadians 1.00

00:28:16.440 from coast to coast to coast, kept arguing with me that the higher courts now have a solemn

00:28:24.280 responsibility to correct what has happened in the lower courts. They've done it before.

00:28:28.840 It's been done in Supreme courts all over the world. That's why you have a Supreme Court of Canada,

00:28:33.720 because there may have been a mistake in the lower courts. Otherwise, why have it? If they're all

00:28:38.040 omnipotent at the lower level, well then why have an appeal court? Why have a Supreme Court of Canada?

00:28:42.920 The mere fact that we do means that there's a possibility that the lower courts got it wrong.

00:28:48.680 And in this case, they got it very much wrong, both in interpreting section one and interpreting

00:28:55.160 or ignoring the principles of the supremacy of God and the rule of law. So I'm still in there

00:29:01.400 fighting that the courts have an opportunity now to correct what has been done wrong so far.

00:29:07.800 Well, I really appreciate you adding in that mention of the preamble because it's so important,

00:29:12.200 and you're right. We don't hear very often the fact that our country, our constitution and our

00:29:16.520 charter is based on the principles of the supremacy of God and the rule of law. I wish our prime minister

00:29:21.800 would contemplate it. I mean, we have a prime minister, Brian, who routinely breaks the law.

00:29:27.560 I mean, he's had multiple ethics violations. He acts oftentimes like he's above the law.

00:29:32.200 He doesn't seem like a person who really does respect the rule of law.

00:29:35.400 And all the other parties, sadly, that are in the House of Commons are in the same boat.

00:29:43.000 And by the way, he never only broke ethics rules. He broke the law.

00:29:48.840 He broke the conflict of interest law, which was a law that was passed by the House of Commons,

00:29:56.440 by these very MPs. And he broke it five times, according to the independent conflict of interest

00:30:04.760 ethics commissioner. And nobody...

00:30:06.840 You're talking about the Aga Khan, the Aga Khan vacation. Is that what you're referring to?

00:30:11.800 That's one. I know that there's just been a...

00:30:13.640 Okay. That's one.

00:30:14.920 That's one, but there are five.

00:30:15.640 Right.

00:30:16.840 And you can go into the website of the ethics commissioner and find all five of these.

00:30:21.160 Another one was obstruction of justice. When the minister attorney general, Judy Wilson-Raybo,

00:30:29.080 was trying to be forced to change her mind and get her department to change their decision, 0.96

00:30:35.240 that SNC-Lavalin company had to go to court. They were trying to get a deal outside of court.

00:30:41.640 Then the prime minister was trying to force his minister of justice through his office and through

00:30:47.400 a couple of his ministers and his staff to get the minister who had already made up her mind that

00:30:53.160 this should go to a full court hearing. The evidence was quite overwhelming that they had

00:30:58.360 committed wrong and that it should go all the way. The prime minister tried to obstruct

00:31:04.840 the normal course of justice by interfering with attorney general and the minister of justice.

00:31:10.520 If anybody learns anything when they become a leader of a political party,

00:31:16.040 which has the majority of seats in the House of Commons or in the parliament, is this.

00:31:19.960 And my first day in office, I was advised by senior people in the government

00:31:28.440 One thing you must know from the start, Mr. Premier, and I'm sure you've heard of this

00:31:32.760 when you were a minister, that the course of justice, the course of justice that is being

00:31:39.480 preceded in your ministry of justice is not to be interfered with by your office or by you.

00:31:45.880 It's one of the principles of British parliamentary democracy. It is a very, very important part of

00:31:53.160 this. That's untouchable. You don't interfere with what the minister of justice department is

00:32:00.360 bringing forward as various allegations or prosecutions against a person, against a company or

00:32:07.400 whatever. I learned it very early on, 24 hours in, I was advised, you know, you'll be well served

00:32:13.880 to leave that alone. That's one, that's sacrosanct. And so the prime minister broke those laws. But my

00:32:19.720 bigger point is this, and there's where we have a problem in Canada today. We have no moral compass

00:32:25.960 anymore. And a really good example is that none of the MPs in any of the parties have tried to amend

00:32:32.840 the conflict of interest legislation so that if an MP breaks the law, they cannot serve in parliament.

00:32:39.800 Right now, the prime minister is still serving in parliament, even though he broke the law,

00:32:44.280 because there is no penalties, like a $100 fine, $500 fine for breaking the law. You can still serve

00:32:51.720 in the parliament of Canada. I wrote on my blog a few days ago on this, and I have been

00:32:58.200 talking about this for a while. So the problem we have in our nation is the prime minister, but it's

00:33:04.760 also all the other leaders of parties in the House of Commons who have not insisted that this conflict

00:33:11.160 of interest law, we don't need to change the constitution. All we need is to go to the House

00:33:16.120 of Commons like you do every day when it's open and make a proposal or make a resolution or propose

00:33:21.480 a change to the conflict of interest act. Any party, any MP can propose that, and none of the parties

00:33:27.640 have done it. And so therefore, they're all guilty by association, by not taking it upon themselves

00:33:34.760 to insist that our parliament and our parliamentarians must be honest. And right now, they're not.

00:33:42.920 Well, it's so true. Sometimes you just shake your head reading the news and hearing about senators

00:33:47.640 and MPs being charged with crimes and breaking the laws. And it's like, what kind of country

00:33:51.480 is this? What kind of culture do we have where we don't have the basic respect for the rule of law?

00:33:56.120 We allow politicians to get away with this. I would likewise echo that. I would love to see laws

00:34:01.640 put into place to be stricter against the people who are elected to represent us.

00:34:05.480 I wanted to pivot a little bit and ask you about the Emergencies Act, because when you were talking

00:34:10.120 about the charter having the demonstrably justifiable clause in section one, and the idea

00:34:16.520 was that it was during like a war time or an extreme event, it seemed very similar to the

00:34:22.360 Emergencies Act. You know, this thing used to be called martial law. It used to be reserved for,

00:34:26.360 you know, the War Measures Act at a time when our country was being invaded or there's an insurrection.

00:34:31.960 It seems to me that the Prime Minister just used it because he didn't like the truckers and he

00:34:35.000 didn't agree with them. I'm wondering if you can comment on what you saw transpire

00:34:40.120 during the trucker convoy and the government's heavy-handed use of force against those protesters.

00:34:47.480 Yes, I was there for a number of days during when the truckers convoy situation was at its peak.

00:34:53.880 And I walked the streets of Ottawa and I didn't see anything that the Prime Minister and some of his

00:34:59.640 associates saw. They were very civil. The streets were left passable and the trucks were on the side

00:35:08.360 and they were negotiating every day with the city of Ottawa to ensure that this convoy could continue

00:35:17.000 and meanwhile people could get around. So, and very few Canadians know that, that the convoy was in touch

00:35:24.840 and negotiating almost every day with the city of Ottawa and the mayor and the police of Ottawa.

00:35:32.280 So, what the Prime Minister and the government did with the support of the NDP and his own and the

00:35:39.160 Liberal MPs was bring in this extreme measure, which by the way, at the beginning of that piece of

00:35:46.040 legislation it said must be consistent and conform to the Charter Rights and Freedoms. Well, it did not,

00:35:51.640 because they never demonstrated at all. And since then, the hearings that have been held have shown

00:35:57.880 that there were no outside forces. There's been no prosecution brought about anybody about firearms

00:36:06.920 or about violence. The very things that the Prime Minister used to justify bringing in the Emergency

00:36:13.000 Act has not materialized when it's been looked at. So, he did this without the evidence to show,

00:36:21.480 to demonstrably justify that he could override the rights and freedoms of the truckers, okay. He did

00:36:26.840 this without the evidence, the firm evidence to justify what he did. So, that was unconstitutional as well,

00:36:33.640 very unconstitutional because it violated the Charter. Now, what's happened to show you how much

00:36:38.920 rot we have in our system? And very few people talking about it. It was revealed this morning

00:36:45.000 by Congress Signal, a news organization, that the Prime Minister appointed yesterday a judge

00:36:53.240 under the act who's supposed to review what happened in the emergency when introducing the Emergency

00:36:58.600 Measures Act, whether it was necessary and so on. But who did he appoint? A judge who was a donor to the

00:37:05.800 liberal party. So, where is the independence? Where is the transparency? Where is the accountability?

00:37:14.280 If the Prime Minister would appoint a judge, surely there's judges around at the higher levels in the

00:37:21.640 provinces who are not contributors to any political party that he could appoint to show how independent

00:37:29.400 this inquiry is going to be. So, this inquiry is tainted right from the start. So, we have a

00:37:35.320 government and MPs who are violating the Charter with their mandates. Then we have a government in Ottawa

00:37:42.920 which is violating the Charter by bringing in the Emergency Measures Act. And now we have a Prime Minister

00:37:48.360 who's appointed a judge to review the bringing in of the Emergency Act, who's a liberal donor to the

00:37:55.240 Liberal Party of which the Prime Minister is a leader. So, that's conflict of interest all over the place.

00:38:00.920 So, all the way, the Conservative Party of Canada, the NDP Party of Canada, the Green Party, all of the

00:38:06.680 parties that are now in the House of Commons should be crying blue murder over this. This is ridiculous 0.97

00:38:13.480 for a country that calls itself a democracy to have an inquiry about something that the government has done, 0.77

00:38:20.280 headed up by a judge that is a party sympathizer.

00:38:24.120 I know, I agree. And we saw that earlier when one of the trucker convoy organizers, Tamara Lynch,

00:38:29.960 was also denied bail from a judge who had also been a Liberal donor. I just want to point out,

00:38:33.880 because I saw that story, the judge. So, the Prime Minister called a national inquiry into the Emergency

00:38:39.240 Act. When I first saw that news, I thought that was a great story. Okay, great. We're going to get to

00:38:42.680 the bottom of this. We're going to figure out why it was called, what happened. And then I sort of read a

00:38:46.600 little bit more. Had to do it. He didn't do it because he was doing something, oh, I should call

00:38:52.040 inquiry to let people know whether, in fact, I did this right or not. He had to do it because it's in the

00:38:57.000 Act. Right. Okay. Okay. There you go. But then I read the subtext. First of all, the judge that was

00:39:02.680 named was Paul Relew. Now, I spoke to a journalist that refuted that point and said that it was a

00:39:07.640 different Paul Relew. So, I'm not sure that that has been verified, that he is a Liberal donor or not,

00:39:11.640 but he was certainly a Liberal appointee who was named the judge that's going to lead this

00:39:16.760 independent public order emergency commission. But I will just say that when you read the fine print

00:39:21.960 of what the commission is supposed to be examining, I mean, you can tell right off the bat this thing

00:39:26.200 is going to be incredibly biased. They're looking and examining the evolution and goals of the

00:39:31.320 protests, the organizers, the participants, the role of foreign and domestic funding, including

00:39:36.440 crowdsourcing, the use of social media, and the impact of misinformation and disinformation,

00:39:41.720 which are the popular buzzwords around justifying censorship online, the economic and international

00:39:48.920 impact of the blockades, and then the use of force. Well, we know that the international blockades

00:39:53.880 had already been removed by the time the Emergencies Act was brought in. So, the whole thing just seems

00:39:58.600 like it's a cooked up exercise in PR on behalf of the Trudeau government.

00:40:02.920 Yeah, listen, the counter-signal produced the documents. They just didn't allege

00:40:12.040 that this judge was a Liberal donor. They produced the documents that showed the amount of money

00:40:17.080 that this judge contributed every year from government documents, okay? Because they have to reveal

00:40:24.360 where their money comes from under law. And his name, that judge's name, appears all through

00:40:33.080 the late 1990s and into the year 2000, where he contributed so much each year to the Liberal

00:40:39.080 Party of Canada. These are not the counter-signals documents. These are the documents of the

00:40:44.680 government of Canada, right, of the law of Canada. And so, I think it's pretty clear that this judge was

00:40:51.560 a Liberal donor. Number two, it's already been revealed through House of Commons committee meetings

00:40:57.800 that there was no outside interference. FinTech, one of the big organizations around the world which

00:41:03.400 examines the flow of money, has already testified that there was no outside money involved here,

00:41:08.920 that it was all ordinary citizens contributing to a legitimate act of civil disobedience which is

00:41:15.800 allowed in this country. We're allowed to freely express, we're allowed to freely assemble,

00:41:21.160 and that's what these people were doing. And so, to even put that in the terms of reference

00:41:26.040 shows a complete insult of what has already been testified by FinTech and other independent

00:41:32.920 observers. And so, once again, like you say, this is a very tainted inquiry before it gets off.

00:41:39.160 But make no mistake about it, the Prime Minister didn't do anything to demonstrate that he wanted

00:41:43.720 to get to the bottom of this. He was forced to do it under law. That's why the inquiry is established,

00:41:49.960 because there's a provision in the act saying you must establish an inquiry. But the other part of

00:41:56.440 all of this is, who does it report to? Who does this inquiry report to? Where does the inquiry go?

00:42:02.360 Where does the results of the inquiry go? Back to the same MPs who supported the Emergency Act

00:42:07.560 in the beginning. So therefore, it goes nowhere. It goes nowhere. It's totally ineffectual,

00:42:12.920 because it's in a conflict of interest from day one.

00:42:17.000 Well, it's absolutely correct. I'll take a look at the countersignal report. I hadn't looked closely

00:42:22.360 at it. I will just say that I spoke to a journalist friend and a Conservative MP before recording,

00:42:26.600 and they told me that it wasn't the same Paul Relew. But I will do some due diligence personally,

00:42:32.040 and get back to you and get back to the audience about that. But certainly, either way, it doesn't

00:42:37.800 seem like a very healthy exercise in getting to the bottom of something that really truly does

00:42:42.600 deserve, Canadians deserve to know what really happened and the abuses of government need to be

00:42:47.480 highlighted. Well, Brian, I really appreciate your time. I had one final question for you, and I know

00:42:53.320 we've gone over a little bit, but I do appreciate your time. And I want to just say, you know, looking back

00:42:57.960 at 40 years of the Charter, do you think the Charter has lived up to your expectations back then from

00:43:04.040 1982? Are there any areas where you think the Charter has fallen short? Anything that you wish

00:43:08.520 you had done differently in drafting and putting together a Charter?

00:43:11.560 Yeah. Man is a fallen being, if you believe in Christianity or some form of spirituality,

00:43:17.400 and none of us are perfect. I think the person who was alleged to be perfect was crucified. So, you know,

00:43:24.200 we don't have too great a chance here of doing something that's always perfect. So, obviously,

00:43:28.840 it can always be improved upon anything. But I would just remind people that this Charter,

00:43:33.960 as I said earlier at the opening, was not negotiated in and of itself. It was a bargaining chip with other

00:43:40.200 things, Aboriginal rights, re-equalization, amending formula, and minority language rights, and so on.

00:43:48.680 They were all part of the mix, and we were negotiating back and forth. So, if you had to

00:43:54.360 do just a Charter over again, that's one thing. But any time you open the Constitution,

00:44:00.040 the parties to the Constitution are going to want other changes, and just not the Charter changes.

00:44:04.520 That's part of living in a democracy, right? And the participants are going to be

00:44:10.520 looking for various things, including Quebec will be looking for other things, because they're not even

00:44:14.680 part of the Constitution right now. So, one has to say, be careful what you wish for,

00:44:21.400 because you might lose the supremacy of God and pick up something else on the other end,

00:44:25.880 and whether that's a bargain or not. And so, yeah, you can always do better. But I would just say that

00:44:31.960 having those sections 2, 6, 7, and 15 clearly identified, I mean, how can there be any dispute over

00:44:40.120 life, liberty, and the security of the person? Remember, constitutions are principles. Legislation

00:44:46.760 gets into real detail. But these are principles that then have to be interpreted by the courts. To

00:44:52.280 make them any more definitive, you will lose something, or you'll gain something. But remember,

00:44:58.120 it's all compromised. You're not into this alone. There are other players, and there are other factors

00:45:05.400 at play. I would just do that. But of course, if you could go back and do anything over again,

00:45:10.600 you can usually make improvements. And we could, no doubt, in the Charter. But remember, you'll never

00:45:15.960 get a situation where you're going to be negotiating the Charter by itself. It will always be, when you

00:45:20.840 open the Charter, you're opening the Constitution. Remember, the Charter is in the Constitution Act 1982.

00:45:28.760 It's not the Charter of Rights Constitution Act. It's the Constitution Act of 1982, of which

00:45:39.560 the Charter is one of seven items. I think it's 30, 60, 60 parts to the Constitution Act, 34 are the Charter.

00:45:51.240 All the rest are of the other matters that I've mentioned. So yes, you can always do better. But

00:45:58.840 in the context of Constitution, not legislation, it is far, far more difficult to get exactly what you

00:46:07.000 want from all the players. We all compromise. This is a compromise document, as all of these things are.

00:46:14.680 Well, thank you for joining the show and providing so much more context and nuance to

00:46:22.200 the circumstances around the Charter, the purpose, some of the more forgotten lines from the Charter

00:46:27.160 that we wish were more emphasized. And thank you as well for your courage, your advocacy,

00:46:33.320 your voice throughout the last two years. I know you've been a tremendous beacon of hope for so many

00:46:37.800 Canadians who feel discouraged by the overreaches of our government and the state of things. So we really

00:46:43.480 appreciate you being out there, Brian, on the front lines fighting against government overreach

00:46:48.440 and continuing to do the important work of upholding and championing the rights and freedoms of all

00:46:53.320 Canadians. So thank you for that. Thank you very much for having me. I really appreciate it and have

00:46:58.680 a great day. All right. Thank you so much. That is Brian Peckford, the former Premier of Newfoundland and

00:47:04.680 Labrador, original signature to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show.

00:47:09.800 Hey everyone. Thank you so much for tuning into that interview. I thought it was great. Great

00:47:15.960 conversation with the former Premier of Newfoundland and original signatory to the Charter of Rights

00:47:20.520 and Freedoms. I appreciate his time. I wanted to revisit one thing that happened in the interview

00:47:24.360 though, because you, as you saw, we had a little bit of a dispute over the judge that is presiding

00:47:29.000 over the national inquiry into the Emergencies Act, the use of the Emergencies Act. Trudeau appointed them.

00:47:34.520 So Peckford, Mr. Peckford made the point that Kian Bextie had reported in the counter signal that this

00:47:40.280 individual was a liberal donor. And now, right before I recorded the interview, I had read a message

00:47:45.400 from someone who was refuting that fact. I talked to a journalist and I spoke to a conservative MP,

00:47:50.120 so I just didn't want to put out information that wasn't accurate. I said that I would do a little

00:47:54.520 bit of due diligence and get back to the audience about it. So I'm doing that right now. So what I am

00:47:59.720 referring to is a report that was put out by Brian Lilly. Brian Lilly is a journalist over at the

00:48:05.960 Toronto Sun and he put this on Twitter. He said, I had a nice chat with Paul Relew from Port Colborne,

00:48:11.320 Ontario. He is not a judge and has not been named head of the inquiry. So the claim by many that the

00:48:16.200 judge is a recent donor is false. Okay. Then he links to his Toronto Sun piece that he has profiling

00:48:21.960 Paul Relew, who is the individual who Trudeau named. And let me just read from that report. He says,

00:48:27.800 it fits with Trudeau's style that he waited until the last possible day to call the inquiry and then

00:48:31.720 appointed a former top liberal political staffer to head the inquiry. So Paul Relew was appointed to

00:48:37.720 the bench by Paul Martin's Liberal government in 2002. He isn't simply someone who made a few small

00:48:42.520 donations to the Liberal Party or someone who went to some cocktail fundraisers. He actually worked for

00:48:47.800 the Liberal Party in the past. So this is more from Brian Lilly's report. In 1983, he was part of John

00:48:53.800 Turner's leadership campaign to dig over when Pierre Trudeau announced his retirement. Relew then had

00:48:58.760 a hand in helping pick Turner's cabinet. Once he won leadership, various media reports described him

00:49:04.040 as an executive assistant or an appointment secretary. So we're not just talking about

00:49:09.240 an independent judge here. We're talking about someone who can fairly and accurately be described

00:49:13.480 as a Liberal insider, a partisan Liberal, a Liberal staffer, someone who is a big L Liberal,

00:49:19.080 just like Justin Trudeau. Think about it. Justin Trudeau just appointed a party loyalist to head

00:49:24.280 up an inquiry into his use of the Emergencies Act. Either way, it's unprecedented whether you

00:49:29.640 take Kean Bexley's word that this guy is a donor or whether you look to Brian Lilly saying, no,

00:49:34.120 he's not a donor. It's not the same guy. However, even worse, this guy was a political staffer for the

00:49:38.600 Liberals. Either way, not good for our country, not good for the state of the rule of law when the person who

00:49:44.440 could be holding Justin Trudeau to account is part of Trudeau's circle, part of the old boys club with

00:49:50.360 the Liberal Party, not a good sign for Canada. Anyway, I wanted to put that out there so that

00:49:54.520 it was clear. I appreciate Mr. Peckford's time. Thank you so much for tuning into the interview

00:49:59.320 and for following True North.

Juno News - April 27, 2022

How has the Charter of Rights and Freedoms changed Canada？ (Ft. The Hon. Brian Peckford)

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