Social Policy in Ontario

Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin argues tolerance, within limits, ‘is the only way forward’

Posted on May 28, 2015 in Governance Debates

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TheStar.com – News/Canada – Canada’s top judge in a speech decried the legacy of “assimilation” policies on aboriginal people, and called for “inclusive” leaders in “all our institutions, religious and secular” to promote tolerance
May 27 2015.   By: Tonda MacCharles, Ottawa Bureau reporter

OTTAWA—Canada’s top judge decried the legacy of “assimilation” policies on aboriginal people in a speech on the public value of diversity, and called for “inclusive” leaders in “all our institutions, religious and secular” to promote tolerance.

Beverley McLachlin, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada, delivered the wide-ranging keynote speech Thursday at the Global Centre for Pluralism, a non-profit centre founded by the Aga Khan and the Canadian government.

It comes on the eve of a historic report into Canada’s relationship with aboriginal people.

It also comes as the limits of public tolerance are tested by national security threats made by Islamist fundamentalists, and political vows of “zero-tolerance” toward perceived threats.

McLachlin argued tolerance, within limits, “is the only way forward,” saying the Canadian government’s 19th century assimilation policies toward aboriginal people would today be called “cultural genocide.”

Democratic societies succeed when they tolerate and embrace religious and cultural differences but McLachlin said there will always be limits to that. She suggested indirectly “21st century jihadists” will not be shielded by guarantees of free speech or religion.

The speech canvassed past examples of cultural and religious intolerance in Canada, and said “the most glaring blemish on the Canadian historic record” is “our treatment of the First Nations that lived here at the time of colonization.”

Canadians now understand the policy of assimilation “was wrong,” she said, noting Prime Minister Stephen Harper formally apologized for the abuses at “a moving ceremony” in 2008 and will receive the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission due next week.

“Yet the legacy of intolerance lives on in the lives of First Nation people and their children — a legacy of too much poverty, too little education, and over-representation of aboriginal people in our courts,” she said.

“Absolute tolerance is not possible,” McLachlin said. Parliament and the courts draw the line on practices that “harm others,” such as hate speech. She said “religious zealots throughout history” have claimed to be acting for the benefit of their victims and she went on to compare the “priests of the Inquisition” to “21st century jihadists (who) claim their elimination of the infidel purges their sin and purifies the state.”

“No one in Canada would accept these arguments,” she said, “but that is not the point.” Rather, she said it was to underline the difficulty of deciding what “constitutes harm.”

McLachlin did not tip her hand on where lawmakers or judges should draw the line in specific disputes such as speech that advocates pro-“jihadist” views, or the wearing of a niqab at citizenship ceremonies. But she did say the high court recently backed a court’s power to order a witness to remove a niqab where an accused’s right to a full defence to criminal charges is at stake.

She also referred to Quebec’s recent debate over the former proposed Charter of Values and “what limits the state could impose on religious practices of people engaged in the provision of public services,” saying it illustrates such decisions are “neither clear nor easy to decide.”

McLachlin outlined three principles she said are ultimately “essential” to maintain a tolerant society: “acceptance of the inherent human dignity of every person; inclusive institutions and cultural attitudes in civil society; and the rule of law.”

The focus must be on “bridging divides instead of deepening them,” she said. “Above all, we need, in all our institutions, religious and secular, leaders who understand pluralism and the basic ethic of tolerance that it requires.”

< http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/05/27/chief-justice-beverley-mclachlin-argues-tolerance-within-limits-is-the-only-way-forward.html >

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