omnes MULLIN SLI UTAIILIULLAL LIT

NO CONSTITUTIONAL SECURITY

What's in Diefenbaker’s new Bill of Rights?

0° the last day of the parlia-

mentary session, Prime
Minister John Diefenbaker in-
troduced a Bill of Rights
(Bill C 60). He said “it was a
“landmark.”

Canada needs a federal Bill
of Rights. Many Canadians
long have advocated it. Now
it has been put before the
House of Commons and a
public discussion is taking
place. The prime minister has
called for such a public de-
bate before the next session
of parliament this winter,
when the bill will be debated.
His offer should be taken up.

It is a sign of the times
that a Tory government
brings in a law of this kind.
There is a demanding spirit
in the land—for peace, demo-
cracy and Canadian indepen-
dence.

$03 es it

het us take 2@ look at
Diefenbaker’s bill.

It says: “in Canada _ there
have always existed and con-
tinue to exist’ the following
human rights and fundamen-
tal freedoms . . .”

These are said to be: “the
right of the individual to life,
liberty, security of the person
and enjoyment of property,
and the right not to be de-
prived thereof_except by due
process of law; the right of the
individual to protection of the
law without discrimination
by reason of race, national
origin, color, religion or sex;
freedom of religion; freedom
of speech; freedom of assem-

bly; and freedom of the
press.”

He is referring here to the
English common law: — the

“unwritten constitution.”
The bill defines the rights
of the individual: “. . . not to
be subject to cruel, inhuman
or degrading treatment or
punishment; not to be deprived
of one’s rights; to be informed
as to the reason for his arrest
* and to be given fair and
public trial. :
The bill, said the prime

minister, would apply to all -

acts of parliament enacted be-
fore and after its passage.

He made clear that civil
liberties can be taken away
by an act of parliament “in
case of war, invasion or in-
surrection, real or apprehend-
ed.” This proviso is wide as a
barn door.

So much for the bill itself.
Now for the procedure for
making it stick.

es 5 Os xt

It will be an act of the fed-
eral parliament and not bind-
ing on the provinces. Under
the present Canadian consti-
tution, the British North Am-
erica Act of 1867, which is

an act of the British, not the
Canadian, parliament, the
provinces have control over
“property and civil rights”
(Section 92C13).

The only way by which the
Bill of Rights could be an
amendment to the constitu-
tion and protected from por-
liamentary repeal (as with
the first 10 amendments to
the U.S. constitution) would
be for the provinces to agree
to surrender their present
authority over civil rights
and give them to the federal
parliament. {This was done in
the case of unemployment
insurance.)

xt xt xt

Apart from this hitch there
are some big holes in Dief-
enbaker’s bill itself.

The ferment of social
change is rising in Canada.
It finds no place in the pres-
ent bill. For example, it
should include the right to
advocate political and social
change and to organize to
promote that right. Under
the words “in case of war,
invasion or insurrection, real
or apprehended,” the gov-
ernment could impose a reign
of terror against anyone who
proposed social change.

The bill-as it stands comes
into sharp conflict with the
shameful provisions in the
Criminal Code (adopted in
1954) respecting sedition and
treason, about which there
was such a furore at the time.

The Criminal Code shonld
be changed in the light of
the Bill of Rights.

Bill C 60 should spell out
the right to organize in trade
unions and the right to strike,
which is now under attack.
(The Toronto Globe and Mail
was quick to propose a
“right to work” clause in the
bill—that is, legalized scab-
bing.)

The prime minister does
not propose to do this. When
it was suggested by Liberal
leader Lester Pearson, he said
it was an “interesting pro-
posal” — as though it had
never occurred to him!

It must be concluded that
the prime minister does not
want a federal-provincial con-
stitutional conference to
make an amendment to the
BNA’ Act.

So if parliament passes
Bill C 60 (as it will, the Tory
majority being what it is)
it will be a federal statute,
not binding on the provinces;
not a constitutional amend-
ment but an act of parlia-
ment which parliament could
repeal at any time.

Civil rights would not be
fundamentally guaranteed by

’

the constitution, that is to say.

The right to leisure, to a
job, to an education, to social
security, and penalties for in-
fractions, are all absent from
the Tory Bill.

5 5e 3 %

It may be said, of what use
is a Bill of Rightss when I
haven’t got a job, when
I can’t afford highpriced
lawyers and everybody
knows there is one law for
the rich and another for the
poor? Haven’t you heard of
Anatole France’s famous
saying: The law in its majesty
forbids rich and poor alike
to sleep under bridges and
on park benches?

A good criticism. Capitalist
law is democracy for’ the
capitalists. Nine-tenths of the
laws deal with property
rights, and nine-tenths of the
people don’t draw incomes

from, property but from their
labor.

The best of! democracy
under capitalism demains
“formal” democracy for the
people until it is given
substance under  socialism—
when the big factories and
banks are the property of the
people in a_ socialist state,
and eonomic democracy
exists.

The only real Bill of Rights
for the majority of Canadi-
ans will be the socialist Bill
of Rights. That will come ev-
evitably, in Canada as in all
countries.

The constitution of the
USSR — the first socialist
constitution in hostory—is an
example of democracy based
upon social ownership.

But right now, as a part of
the struggle for democracy
and socialism it. is important
to get into the argument

This travel book on
Africa is different

RESENT a human skull or
P skeleton to a surgeon and
he will not be able to tell you
whether the living man or
woman: had been Negro or
‘“‘white.” :

The African and the Euro-
pean belong to the same blood
group; their brains are of the
same range of shapes and
sizes.

Science knocks the bottom
out of race myths wich how-
ever apparently “spon-
taneous’? or unconscious, can
be traced’ back to economic or
political origins.

Russell Warren Howe, in
Black Star Rising (published
in Britain last month and
available here later this
month) rightly maintains that
greater understanding would
exist if elementary facts were
taught in schools. “They may
help to save wars,” he says.

“T imagine children would
find ethnology and anthro-
pology interesting, for most
children prefer ‘living’ sub-
jects like physiology and his-
tory to abstract subjects like
algebra, and they are cer-
tainly among the most avid
readers of travel books.

Black Star Rising itself
is just the kind of book for
both teenagers and _ adults,
that can be highly recomend-
ed for breaking down racial
myths and prejudice—a lesson

on Africans without tears.

Howe is a journalist, speak-
ing fluent. French, who
journeyed by car. through
“French” West Africa — and
ended up in Ghana.

But this is not just the
usual travel book with its
superficial myopic emphasis
on the “exotic’ and the
“primitive” in Africa. Howe
establishes his enlightened, in-
telligent attitude right from
the beginning.

The civilizations in Dahomey
and Ghana, he points out,
“were contemporaneous with
that of latter-day Rome, and
well preceded those of France
or the British Isles.”

‘Many African values are
better than Western values,”
he reminds those who smugly
assume that the “Western
way” is the acme of civilized
behavior.

With a wicked sense of

“humor he takes the rise

equally out of the _ typical
French colonial who blindly
persists in the hopeless. task
of converting “his” bit of
West Africa into a carbon
copy of Paris, as well as out
of the British colonial who
insists on bacon and eggs for
breakfast.

Black Star Rising is one of
the best books about Africa
yet published.

October 3, 1958 — PACIFIC TRIBUNE

about Diefenbaker’s 8
Rights, to fight to imp!
and to use it for labor's

While a Bill of Rights?
ed by the federal pari”
is a step, it is necessaly ©
the provinces participa
it to make it effecti,
federal - provincial com
tional conference sho
called to endorse the
Rights.

Provineial legislature
should endorse the Dit 4
propose improvements

The time has come?
an end to the colonial’
of having the British P
ment pass amendmeh
Canada’s’ constitution.
ian sovereignty and inde? F
ence require that
should make and arnt
own constitution. A 2%
provincial constitution®
ference could so decidé:

History shows that ®
of Rights and a consti
in the conditions of ©,
istic government must
fended from facism. ~ 0 sh

The capitalists have ®
time and again that they
scrap them if their cla
is placed in danger. 10

In 1920 the const
in Weimar Republic ™
many was hailed as “t
and most democratic ‘*
tory, It did not st0P ©
coming to power, with 1 Det !
ority vote. The Social: OY
crats voted for Hitler ‘3 ‘|
Reichstag in May, 1” |
“constitutionally i

The 1946 Constitutia’,
the Fourth French i
contains a clause i ptf
the right of the ass@™™ i
vote full powers to % qi
—after the experien | i
Vichy and Petain. cot?
not stop de Gaulle fr ot
suming these powé!s &
French right wing ye
from voting to give 4
him. ‘ esi

In 1946, dunn the as!
age” cases, secret ye
council were passed an ari
dian citizens secretl ya
and tried. Habeas CoP
suspended.

Eternal vigilance
price of liberty.

In fighting for #
Rights Canadian
people must remem
the end it is their ©
for democracy whi

greater power.
LESLIE Mo

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