The Critical Compass Podcast - September 30, 2026


The ONLY Way a Constitution Keeps You Free ｜ Bruce Pardy - Capitalism & Morality 2026

CBC Filmed an Empty Room. Independents Got 20 Million Views. ｜ Jason Lavigne

Episode Stats


Length

18 minutes

Words per minute

102.33

Word count

1,906

Sentence count

70


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
00:00:00.000 how do you design a constitution that guarantees the freedom of the people
00:00:15.520 this is the paradox of the state
00:00:21.760 you can't be free with it and you cannot be free without it
00:00:32.020 and if a constitution is going to work
00:00:36.580 it has to resolve that paradox
00:00:44.780 this is article two of the constitution of china
00:00:51.680 Now, what does this tell us?
00:00:58.540 It tells us that it does not matter what the document says.
00:01:09.240 This is section two of our charter.
00:01:17.400 Now, maybe not to quite the same extent,
00:01:21.680 But this also tells us that it does not matter what the document says.
00:01:36.900 This is from the Constitution Act 1867.
00:01:42.120 It gives the federal government the mandate to pass laws for the peace, order, and good government of Canada.
00:01:58.020 Now, what is the problem?
00:02:02.820 The problem is that this is the premise of our model of Constitution.
00:02:11.060 Here's the premise. The federal government and the province together has this mandate, which is to pass laws for the general good.
00:02:27.380 And what is the effect of that mandate?
00:02:30.420 That mandate means that the province and the federal government together have unlimited jurisdiction over everything, everything, which is why we tried to do this.
00:02:50.520 You give unlimited jurisdiction to the government, the state, the legislature, and then you try to restrict them, and it hasn't worked.
00:03:04.600 Now, here is the favorite passage from the American Declaration of Independence, the favorite passage of classical liberals and libertarians and anarchists.
00:03:18.980 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that men are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
00:03:33.020 It's a beautiful philosophical position.
00:03:38.440 But in fact, and in law, it is wrong.
00:03:46.600 Completely wrong.
00:03:48.980 Here's why.
00:03:52.160 There's the right.
00:03:53.300 They wrote it down.
00:03:54.700 They decided to grant one of those rights that are apparently unalienable.
00:04:01.660 And then what happened?
00:04:03.760 The court alienated it.
00:04:08.080 The reason for writing it down in the first place was that the federal government and the province could alienate
00:04:18.360 that right in their legislation. Rights legally are not unalienable. If they are not granted,
00:04:29.520 they do not exist because the state has full authority to do as it thinks best in the common
00:04:41.940 good that means rolling over your individual rights if they ever existed so i agree with
00:04:52.900 the philosophical position this is the way we ought to think about it but this saying so over
00:05:00.340 and over again does nothing to change the actual constitutional legal situation
00:05:08.820 and here's what you get before you put in rights here's what you get this is a statement just for
00:05:16.040 example from the ontario high court back in 1908 the legislature within its jurisdiction meaning
00:05:24.380 is it federal or provincial but the legislature can do everything that is not naturally impossible
00:05:34.840 and is restrained by no rule, human or divine.
00:05:41.580 If the plaintiff had rights, the legislature had the power to take them away.
00:05:51.100 The rights are alienable.
00:05:54.720 So let me ask you a question.
00:05:57.800 When are you free?
00:06:01.100 What does that mean?
00:06:02.960 my answer would be this you are free when you are not subject to the force of other people
00:06:14.760 that means you are not being coerced you are not subject to their violence
00:06:20.240 and when i say other people i mean all the other people your neighbors and the people who work
00:06:29.640 for the state. And if you are subject to their force, of course, that means you are not free.
00:06:40.940 Which leads us to the paradox of the state that I started off with.
00:06:46.260 The state exists to protect liberty, to protect you from the violence of your fellow men.
00:06:53.420 And yet, it becomes liberty's biggest threat.
00:06:59.640 you can't be free with it and you can't be free without it now i hope it's obvious in this room
00:07:11.200 why the first is the case you can see it everywhere in all areas of life today the
00:07:18.600 role of the state has become overbearing overwhelming and intrusive but let's just
00:07:26.180 talk about the second one for a moment. Why can't you be free without it? With all due respect to
00:07:35.440 the anarcho-capitalists in the room, anarchy means that you are potentially subject to the
00:07:46.040 violence of other people. Now, you can contract and cooperate, but remember this. Remember what
00:07:54.080 anarchy means anarchy means there are no laws are no laws there is no one with the authority
00:08:07.120 to enforce anything other than in your little private arrangements and here are all and this
00:08:14.320 is just a very short list of a very long list here are all the variations of anarchy anarchy thinking
00:08:22.080 There are anarcho-capitalists and anarcho-communists and green anarchists and anarcho-feminists
00:08:31.440 and Christian anarchists and anarcho-pacifists and many more.
00:08:37.200 And they're all forgetting something. You don't get to choose what happens in your anarchy.
00:08:46.240 anarchy is anarchy there are no rules there are no premises there is no
00:08:55.120 property unless you figure out how to do it and there is nothing nothing that all
00:09:04.240 members of any society agree about you cannot proceed with this project with
00:09:12.440 expectation that we'll all understand what's going on and we agree about the objectives that's not
00:09:19.160 the way it works that's why you need a state and why you need a constitution that resolves its
00:09:27.480 paradox here are seven ways to try to write a constitution that will fail
00:09:37.160 Fail to resolve the paradox of the state.
00:09:45.140 You can exhort people and leaders to honor the Constitution, to honor your rights, to
00:09:52.240 accept and recognize your freedom of speech and so on.
00:09:57.200 That's a waste of time.
00:10:00.300 If your constitution depends upon the honor of the people with power, your constitution
00:10:11.800 does not work.
00:10:15.780 If you could do that, why have a constitution at all?
00:10:19.620 You could just rely upon the honor of the people who rule over you.
00:10:24.520 You can try to elect different people who might honor the constitution.
00:10:28.640 know we all know that's a waste of time you can put in more rights this happened during and after
00:10:35.680 covid our experience during during covid was what happened our rights didn't work
00:10:45.200 oh well let's put in some more then there's no reason why those additional rights will
00:10:51.040 work any better than the ones that are already written down rights don't work the way we think
00:10:58.640 they are alienable put in more checks and balances put in more exhortations and sentiments write
00:11:07.940 down what you want in the document go back to the document of china the constitution of china
00:11:12.420 it doesn't matter what the document says if the people in power can figure out a way around
00:11:21.880 you can try and improve the wording sure that would help but it's not a panacea it's not a
00:11:30.840 solution it's not because of the wording that we run into trouble
00:11:36.900 or you can have citizen referendums like in switzerland let's put all the questions to the
00:11:45.240 people instead of having people ruling over us the people should decide just like article two
00:11:51.620 of the constitution of china the power should belong to the people well okay except watch out
00:11:59.600 what you've done because you have now subjected your freedom to the mob if you have a referendum
00:12:11.120 on every major policy question just imagine what will happen during covet for example if you had
00:12:19.860 this system in place, you subject to the people the question, should everybody in the country
00:12:26.260 be required to get a vaccine? If 60% of the people say yes, the law now is you will get a vaccine
00:12:39.420 or you will go to prison. There are no rights. You can't go off to a court to object. That's
00:12:48.500 the system that you've adopted democracy and freedom are two completely different things
00:12:59.620 so what do we do how do you resolve the paradox of the state in a constitution
00:13:08.820 so that you get a constitution that guarantees the freedom of the people
00:13:14.020 that no government can dishonor even if it wants to.
00:13:21.860 How do you do that?
00:13:24.600 I'm going to just mention very briefly four features,
00:13:28.860 and I've suggested a whole number of them.
00:13:32.680 I won't go through all of them.
00:13:33.800 These are just the first four, maybe the most important four,
00:13:36.760 but we'll leave that question up in the air.
00:13:40.720 Here's four features of a constitution that might resolve the paradox of the state.
00:13:51.060 To protect your freedom, but not to threaten it.
00:13:56.980 Number one, if freedom means that you are not subject to the force of other people,
00:14:04.220 then that's the first rule.
00:14:06.280 no one can use force against other people including the state now how you enforce the
00:14:14.660 rule well for any law is must be enforced with the force of the state so that's a rule that
00:14:22.700 the state can enforce and that's all that's the first one second one you flip the default
00:14:32.100 But that default that I mentioned, the premise that the state has the mandate to do everything in the public good, you've flipped that default.
00:14:43.820 The state has the power to do nothing except.
00:14:51.880 Except what?
00:14:53.840 The original default says the power to do everything except rights.
00:14:58.860 This one says the power to do nothing except, what are the exceptions?
00:15:04.700 Well, very short list.
00:15:07.200 I would suggest keep the peace, enforce the rule against force, resolve disputes in courts,
00:15:14.580 protect the country, have a military, have borders, and very little else.
00:15:21.940 number three it's all very well to have these rules written down but they can be ignored
00:15:28.300 we saw that unless you also manage to avoid having a ruling class a professional ruling class
00:15:39.580 what's the best way to avoid the tyranny of a professional ruling class not to have one
00:15:46.600 So we set things up so that people are serving the state minimally, briefly, and then they get out.
00:15:55.080 Maximum lifetime service for public servants.
00:15:59.280 Pick a number.
00:16:00.400 I've picked eight years.
00:16:01.820 You can only serve the state in any capacity cumulatively.
00:16:06.640 Politician, judge, ambassador, bureaucrat, receptionist, consultant, supplier.
00:16:13.360 Eight years total.
00:16:14.380 get in do the job get out there are no empires there is no deep state there are no powerful
00:16:21.100 people there is nobody to lobby and finally this is going to sound counterintuitive
00:16:28.720 because precedent after all is a feature of our common law system supposed to provide us
00:16:35.800 with certainty predictability the equal application of the law but we have precedent now
00:16:43.560 and we don't have any of those things and instead what we have is a star chamber supreme court
00:16:52.540 of canada who takes the power of precedent takes the constitution and dictates to the country
00:16:59.860 what they want the constitution to mean you have to disempower the highest courts
00:17:09.020 from having the power to dictate what the words of the Constitution mean.
00:17:15.020 You take precedent away.
00:17:18.060 And if you do that, every court in every case
00:17:21.440 goes back to the words of the Constitution themselves.
00:17:26.140 Now, there's no guarantee that that judge will interpret those words
00:17:30.880 in the way that you want.
00:17:33.180 But it least means that the words are interpreted afresh
00:17:37.580 every single time and no small cabal of judges who are appointed to 75 get to dictate the
00:17:46.160 constitutional meaning of a country so that's just a taste those are the first four bits
00:17:51.880 the project is to try to figure out how to resolve this problem and i think there is
00:17:59.960 a way to do it thank you
00:18:07.580 Transcription by CastingWords