Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!
My Opinion and Take on the Charter

My Opinions on the Charter


I will start out by saying that having the Charter is a very good thing. Before the Charter we still had those rights, or most of them, but the only way you could tell was by knowing the laws and deducting from them what you were legally intitled to. But with the Charter, Canadians' rights and freedoms are right there, in an easy-access format, for everyone to read.

I can sing many of its praises, but it does have some faults as well. The charter starts off with

"Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law"

But in s. 2(a) it says that everyone has the [following] fundamental freedoms: freedom of conscience and religion.
How is saying that we live in a land under "God" and must obey "God" but also saying that we have freedom of religion fair? If anything it should be entities, or deities or "if you chose to believe in something, what ever that thing is do as it says, or if you don't belive in anything listen to your conscience while still conforming to the rule of law. . ." (okay, I'm becoming a bit facetious). But I think that some people may get my point. Others wouldn't care. But other than that little problem, the charter is a very good thing. Because how many people actually know their rights? Other than the ones we see on TV when someone is getting arrested. Ask anyone what their rights are and they will probably say "the right to remain silent, the right to a lawyer (attorney in USA), etc." Then show them the charter. All of our rights as Canadians are laid out, pretty simple and pretty concise. There are probably rights and freedoms that the average citizen has that they never knew they had. This is why the charter is good. It allows an average-joe to understand what his rights are, without having to go through law school.