Toward the Charter: Canadians and the Demand for a National Bill of Rights, 1929–1960

Extract

Toward the Charter: Canadians and the Demand for a National Bill of Rights, 1929–1960, Christopher MacLennan, Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003, pp. xii, 234.

This is an excellent and timely book, providing a review of the pivotal historical events and the actions of civil libertarians and parliamentarians that resulted in the statutory Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960. Indeed, the true value of this book is that it suggests the limited nature of the present debate on judicial power and of the tendency to see the Charter of Rights as simply an institutional dialogue between the Supreme Court and the Parliament of Canada. MacLennan's work reminds us that the entrenchment of the Charter cannot be understood without considering the historical legacy of the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights, and the important struggles of interest groups, civil liberties organizations, academics such as F.R. Scott and members of Parliament such as John Diefenbaker, all of whom encountered strong resistance to the idea of a national bill of rights from the Liberal governments of Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent.