Impact of Prime Minister Trudeau’s 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms

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Throughout Canada’s moderately short history, there have been many acts and treaties made by the residing government, or monarch. Some, more than others, were demonstrated examples of positive rights, where more power was given to Parliament rather than the communities the agreement, or law, was made for. The evolution of rights and freedoms in Canada was a long process that included many stages. Three specific instances that will be mentioned later in this paper include the Numbered Treaties and the Indian Act (year), which were negotiations made between the government and the residing Native chiefs from across Canada with regard to land and status. Finally, the Chinese Head Tax in 1885 which later developed into the Chinese Immigration Act between the years 1923 and 1947 will also be discussed where a specific race of people were legally obliged to either pay to enter the country or to be uniquely refused. It should be noted that the specifics of the above agreements were not entirely just which would serve as examples that would lead to the direct predecessor of the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms; the 1960 Bill of Rights imposed by Prime Minister Diefenbaker. Therefore, in order to understand the democratic changes that Prime Minister Trudeau’s 1982 Charter of rights and Freedoms witnessed in Canada, a comparison has to be made with what influenced this new agreement.

The Numbered Treaties and the Indian Act of 1876 are two examples of past events that were later changed in the 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. One issue that Derek Whitehouse notes in his article The Numbered Treaties: Similar Means to Dichotomous Ends that there were two contrasting agendas between the government and the Aboriginals during the nego...

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...children.”**(28) Along with another section that applies to Native women who married Native men from another band where, “...she would be automatically transferred to the band of her husband, regardless of her personal wishes.” (28) This law was gender specific because if the opposite had happened, where an Aboriginal man married a non-aboriginal woman he would keep his Indian status alongside his new wife and eventual children. The 1982 Charter addresses similar situations in section four, paragraph ninety-one where the federal government does not have the right, or power, to interfere with provincial laws. This includes both marriage and Indian relations.** Despite having an inconsiderate past, the 1982 charter of Rights and Freedoms had amendments that created a more equal and egalitarian environment, especially in the case of the Aboriginal people in Canada.

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