CKNW Editorial
for October 29, 2001

I received a call last week that truly disturbed me. You may remember the lady that asked, and I paraphrase, why we should we be worried about the rights of a few when thousands want to ignore them. I’m sure she is a very nice lady but I must say that this attitude appalls me.

The protection of rights isn’t a civics game … it’s not just some sort of structured debate at a college meeting of the Civil Rights Club. The protection of the rights of minorities, even minorities of one, is the essence of what we are and what we hope to be.

No, this is not going to be an editorial where I suggest we should be soft on terrorists. No one in their right mind would want that. It is, I hope, going to be a reminder of what happens when we forget our liberties.

Our forefathers, to the extent they came from Britain, France or the United States fought for their rights against enormous odds. It is the reason they had to fight so hard that ought to give us pause for reflection when any government wants to limit these rights. And the reason they had to fight so hard is for the very human reason that power never yields power without a struggle – often a God Awful struggle. When that happens it’s invariably because those who have been denied rights, win a bloody battle or suddenly find themselves, usually temporarily, in charge. What is also invariable is that when the oppressed are in power for any length of time they rue the fact that the power of the government was ever diminished and try to recapture that power. The struggle is a never ending one.

The history of France after the French Revolution is instructive. The minority who gained the rights in 1789, very soon denied all rights to those they deposed. Then came Napoleon as a dictator followed by a restoration of the Bourbons. The obtaining by the French of civil liberties occupied the end of the 18^th century, all of the 19^th and some of the 20^th.

The American Revolution did not bring with it a Bill of Rights – that was an afterthought and, when made part of the first ten amendments to the Constitution of 1787, was hotly contested. At that, laws were passed protecting the president from criticism, sanctifying slavery and imprisoning Japanese Americans in World War II.

Canada, carrying with it Britain’s Magna Carta and other documents and traditions, also managed to deprive citizens of Japanese origin of their freedom and possessions until four years after the Second World War ended. And has been mentioned over the past few days, Pierre Trudeau jailed nearly 800 innocent people because the Quebec Provincial Police and the RCMP were unable to handle two high profile kidnappings, one which became a murder using the War Measures Act … which Vancouver’s Mayor Tom Campbell wanted to use to jail hippies.

My point is that power does indeed corrupt.

As Canadians we like to forget our lapses and consider ourselves pretty decent people. Yet it took nearly 50 years for our government to apologize to Japanese-Canadians and the compensation they received was trivial considering what was taken from them, sold at 10 cents on the dollar with the proceeds used to keep them in prison camps. As late as 1949 these citizens weren’t allowed to return to their homes and the government tried to deport many of them to Japan, a country they had never seen.

We like to look at what’s happened in other lands as if it can’t happen here. Those who think that way ought to read Sinclair Lewis’ classic called It Can’t Happen Here.

Germany is a highly civilized country with an unmatched contribution to western culture yet Adolf Hitler was voted into power after having laid before the public in his best seller Mein Kampf just what he intended to do. The public that elected him may not have been able to foresee the Holocaust from Hitler’s utterances and writings but they had to see that Jews were going to be dealt with harshly … yet they thronged to the polls to elect him and went by the hundreds of thousands to cheer him wildly as he ranted and raved at Nazi rallies.

We have in this country what might best be called an authoritarian democracy, much like they have in Turkey. On paper, the prime minister is simply first amongst equals – in practice the only thing that circumscribes his absolute dictatorship is the custom of holding periodic elections. Yet he wants what even his staunchest supporters know could be terrible powers if exercised wrongly. And who could exercise them wrongly? The police, of course. And who runs the national police force? An independent commissioner? An arms length director? No siree – the prime minister runs the police force.

Let me put to you this test – if Mr Chretien’s government or any other Liberal government for that matter, were to abuse the powers given under terrorist legislation, do you suppose there would be a peep out of any of our BC Liberal MPs, much less a demand he resign? Do you honestly think that Hedy Fry would complain? Or that Sophie Leung would bite the hand that has so handsomely rewarded her? Or that Stephen Owen, now almost rehabilitated from the crash he took when he criticized Chretien’s poodle of an Ethics commissioner, would make a peep … now that he’s about to become a cabinet minister and get his "honolurable"?

It’s for the foregoing reasons that I allow myself the luxury of caring about anti-terrorist legislation even in these times. Am I so wrong to have learned the lessons I have, not just from the history I have read, but that which I’ve lived through?

As I said a week ago, with a tightening of definitions as suggested by the general counsel to the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and a sunset clause, my fears wouldn’t evaporate but I would have to withdraw my objections.

Right now an absolute dictator is asking for extraordinary police powers with the request that we trust him … and I simply ask, why should we?