Forgotten History: Civil Rights in Canada

Many recent events in Canadian public life have highlighted the evolution of the concept of individual rights in this country.

It was at the forefront of the controversy over the truckers' convoy and the invocation of the Emergencies Act last year and was the entire substance of the dispute between Professor Jordan Peterson and the administration of the University of Toronto and those who wished to coerce him into addressing them in the new pronouns that vary or obscure gender identification.

Although rights are enunciated in the Constitution and in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms attached to it and violations of rights have been addressed in the Criminal Code throughout Canada's history as an autonomous country, the profusion of human rights tribunals and the increasing tendency for subgroups of society aggressively to pursue identity politics have all combined to make the question of individual rights one of increasingly great and frequent emphasis.

This trend has been amplified by controversies over adaptations of apparel to accommodate religious affiliation and over language rights of minorities in both official languages in Canada.

That's why The Democracy Fund and Conrad Black have published a new book that provides a brief history of the evolution of rights in Canada from the days of New France and through the century of the British colonial period and the 156 years of Confederation.