Is this where we’re headed? Where President Obama will take us if he can?
The “this” to which I refer is a recent decision by the Supreme Court of Canada holding that “[g]iving exclusive commercial fishing licences to aboriginal groups” does not discriminate against non-aboriginal fishermen.
Why not? Well, because it’s “affirmative action.”
In its decision, the court acknowledged the program “has a detrimental effect on non-aboriginal commercial fishers” and “that the disadvantage is related to racial differences,” but found the program falls under the section of the charter [the the Charter of Rights and Freedoms] that protects affirmative action programs from constitutional challenges….
The charter section in question — section 15(2) — gives governments the right to implement a program that “has as its object the amelioration of conditions of disadvantaged individuals or groups”
Our Constitution, to the dismay of liberals and Democrats, is much more old-fashioned, speaking as it does not of “amelioration” but of the quaint concept of “equal protection,” a concept that its adherents (now pretty much limited to rubes, small towners, most Republicans, many Democrats who are not elected office holders or party officials, and most people not employed by a university or in positions of responsibility in large corporations or the media) revere because it derives from the even more fundamental core value that every individual American has a right to be treated by the state “without regard” to race, creed, color, or national origin.
But not to worry. The libs/Dems don’t need a Canadian-style Constitution. All they need is a president who will appoint judges who will “construe” the Constitution we have to reach a Canadian result.
ADDENDUM
A good example of a Supreme Court Justice who has no trouble reading our Constitution as though it were written in Canadian can be found here.
I’m dubious about most “affirmative action”, but I think there’s some background missing here that makes this decision seem less outrageous. First, the Fraser River fishery was until recently the major source of food for many Indians. Second, Canada and BC actively discriminated AGAINST the Indians in favor of white commercial fishermen by such activities as destroying fish traps. Third, the fishery has declined very badly in large part due to the activities (overfishing, pollution, dam-building) of the colonists. Fourth, the status of aboriginal rights remains unresolved due to the fact that the Crown refused even to enter into treaty negotiations with most tribes in BC. No treaty was ever signed with any of the tribes dependent on the Fraser River fishery. So, this is not a case in which a fishery is being given to Indians as a leg up. Rather, the idea is that Indians, as the original owners of the resource, who have never agreed to give up control, for whom it is of particular economic and cultural importance, should have first dibs on a resource diminished due to the fault of other parties.
Interesting and very relevant comment. In fact, the Canadian policy re access to the Fraser River sounds almost exactly like the privileges Native Americans tribes here often enjoy by treaty, and I agree that it can be distinguished from more “normal” affirmative action.
However, the fact that it can be doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be. To pick just one example, should the descendants of the Fraser River Indians continue to enjoy privileged access to the river three, four, six generations later?
Here, when affirmative action (in the current sense of preferential treatment) was introduced it was defended as a short-term, temporary expedient. Such a justification was necessary since almost everyone, including liberals, at that time continued to believe deeply in the “without regard” principle, and an exception to it had to be justified along lines similar to justifiying censorship in war to a society devoted to free speech.
Thus the damaging thing about the Canadian decision is not so much the result as the justification for reaching it.