Western Standard - Canada's Constitution： 1982 Shift & US Comparison

Length

1 minute

Words per minute

127.58

Word count

165

Sentence count

00:00:00.000 So before 1982, before we had a codified constitution, we were, I'm going to say, more different than from America.

00:00:10.920 We were about compromise and the sovereignty of the people in that the people had the ability to elect people to say what the law was,

00:00:23.140 regardless of what judges had said in the past,

00:00:26.080 we could elect new representatives and they could make new laws.

00:00:30.880 So we had a direct influence and impact on the law of the land.

00:00:35.380 And then after 1982, everything goes back to the codified Constitution,

00:00:40.860 which is defined and understood primarily through the judiciary.

00:00:46.200 So that

00:00:48.000 So before 82, Canada chose sovereignty of the individual and compromise.

00:00:55.760 The United States chose sovereignty of the state and adversarial direction. And then at 82,

00:01:05.760 what we did was we threw out our entire history, and we joined the United States. And the reason

00:01:10.960 I voted against it, because in short form, is I didn't want Canada to become like America.

Western Standard - August 13, 2026