The concept of civil rights goes back a long way in Canada, and in recent times was at the forefront of events such as the truckers’ convoy protest and Jordan Peterson’s fight against compelled speech, says a new book by Conrad Black.
“[The book] delves into the evolution of individual rights in the country, revealing a rich tapestry of struggles, controversies, and triumphs that have shaped Canada’s social and political landscape.”
Beginning in the early 16th century, Mr. Black offers a historical narrative of the events he views as having shaped the nation, from the concept of rights for Canada’s native peoples, to its history with slavery, to its maturation into Confederation and sovereignty.
The book covers the days of New France, the century of the British colonial period, and 156 years of Confederation.
Mr. Black writes that the book is not intended to be a history of the great powers in the Middle Ages of the 16th century, but rather a description of how early nation states provided much of the foundation for Canadian law and government. The book covers the development of provinces, for example how Upper Canada became Ontario in 1791, and how slavery was abolished in that region a year later. This particular development, he notes, was 42 years before the British Empire did the same, 57 years before the French Empire, and 74 years before the United States emancipated its slaves.
Mr. Black writes of the history of Quebec City and Montreal, captured by the British in the Seven Years’ War, and the “gentle form of British military rule that ensued,” as well as the growth of a small English-speaking population.
He says Canada remains the world’s only “transcontinental bicultural parliamentary confederation,” a Group of Seven country, and “one of the 10 or 12 most important sovereign states in a world of nearly 200 autonomous nations.”
Erosion of Civil Rights in Recent Years
Mr. Black created Hollinger International, once one of the world’s largest newspaper companies, and also founded the National Post newspaper. He is presently the historian-in-residence at TDF.In a video about his book on TDF’s website, Mr. Black gives some of the reasons for the erosion of individual rights in recent years.
“Although rights are enunciated in the Constitution and in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms attached to it, and violations of rights have been endorsed in the Criminal Code throughout Canada’s history as an autonomous country, the profusion of human rights tribunals and the increasing tendency for some groups in society aggressively to pursue identity politics have all combined to make the question of individual rights one of increasingly frequent emphasis,” he says.
“This trend has been amplified by controversies over adaptations of apparel to accommodate religious affiliations and over language rights of minorities in both official languages in Canada.”
Perhaps the most interesting section of the book covers Mr. Black’s views on the suspension of civil rights in Canada via the War Measures Act, replaced by the Emergencies Act in 1988, during the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa over pandemic restrictions.
In early 2022, a convoy of hundreds of truck drivers and 3,000 to 15,000 protesters, he estimates, converged on Canada’s capital city to protest vaccine mandates and government lockdowns that had then affected most of the country for two years.
“The convoy immediately proved to be a flashpoint for both sides of the COVID- shutdown issue,” Mr. Black writes.
“A large and steadily growing minority felt that the rules were excessive, not based on adequate research of this new virus, and counterproductive in the economic and sociological damage that they inflicted on society, and particularly in forcing almost the entire school population to remain at home and continue education over the internet.”
According to Mr. Black, the convoy was seen as an “inspirational and courageous movement by the enemies of comprehensive COVID regulations and shutdowns, and a menace to public order with insurrectionist and anarchistic tendencies by the upholders of the COVID regulations.”
On Feb. 14, 2022, the Emergencies Act was invoked by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the first time it was used since its inception 34 years previously.
“Despite reprehensible efforts to portray the truckers as dangerous and bent on a severe disruption of the government ... almost all of them were legitimately disgruntled citizens raising an authentic objection to capricious and unnecessary authoritarianism,” Mr. Black writes.
Mr. Black concludes that despite the findings of Paul Rouleau and the public inquiry into the Emergencies Act, the invocation was “not justified.” He suggests the Trudeau government should have met with the truckers, and could have continued allowing exemptions to vaccine mandates for those crossing the border and used normal police operations to maintain civil order.
“As excesses of authority and suppressions of civil rights, which in the contemporary world regularly arise in almost all countries, this episode was high-handed, amateurish, petulant, histrionic, and somewhat contemptible, but it stopped well short of an atrocity,” he writes.
