Left And Right Wing Charterphobia Analysis

Left and Right Wing Charterphobia Within Richard Sigurdson’s article titled Left and Right-Wing Charterphobia in Canada, he criticizes the opinions of left and right-winged individual’s opinions on the effects that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms has on the country. These criticisms and scepticism about the Charter are referred to by Sigurdson’s as “charterphobia” and are looked at from the point of view of liberals and conservatives. The way in which the author approaches the subject of Canada’s charter is in a critical way through the analysis of these criticisms on the left and right wing charterphobia. Not only does the author approach the topic from a critical way but by referencing specific cases in history, he is able to

The next argument that was made in the article is how left-wing charterphobes viewed the implementation of the charter. The main concern that the left-wings had with the charter was that it would act as a constraint on the government with the purpose of the protections of citizen’s right when it came to economic and social affairs. It was believed by them that the Charter would act in the interests of corporations and those who were already privileged within society at the expense of those who are at a disadvantage. They were also concerned with the notion that the charter could potentially be “Americanizing” Canada, due to the fact that the charter is very similar to the American Bill of Rights and much of our case law is based on the precedents in American. Sigurdson then gives a counter argument to these claims of the left wings by stating that historically it is apparent that our freedom was protected by the parliamentary government in the past and it should be expected to be well into the future also. The author also takes into account the rule of law, division of jurisdiction, statutory bills and institutions of parliament had already been part of our constitution to counter the concerns of the left-wings. Differing from the views of the left-wing charterphobes, right-wings were concerned that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was being used to force the governments into allowing what they called “extremist views”, these are topics are things such as abortion, same sex marriage, subsidized childcare and so on. Their main argument however, was that the charter would benefit those who make up special interest groups who “...invoke it to persuade appointed judges to reverse the decisions of