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Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the 1982 Proclamation of the Constitution Act.
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April 17, 2022 • 2 hours ago • 4 minutes reading • 236 comments The official English version of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is displayed. Photo of THE CANADIAN PRESS / stf
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A visitor to Washington can go right to the US Constitution, the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.
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These yellowed documents, contained in special boxes and radiating sacred authority, are on display in the Rotunda for the Charters of Freedom at the National Archives Museum.
But there is no such option for Canadians. The 1982 Constitution Act, which contains the charter, is not set out anywhere. Even the British North America Act, the founding document now called the Constitution Act of 1867, is not on display – not even in Canada.
“There are a bunch of documents ranging from the Hudson Bay Company Charter through the Proclamation of 1763 to the ‘numbered contracts’ of the 1870s that have never been shown in Canada, and that’s a real shame,” said Patrice Dutil, a contributor. at the MacDonald-Lorie Institute, in an email. “Museums need to show them creatively, sparking historical debates that people crave in this country.”
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Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Proclamation of the Constitution Act in 1982. Queen Elizabeth II, then-Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chrétien, then Minister of Justice, and Andre Wellett, Secretary-General, signed the document as raindrops dripped onto the page.
Then the 1982 Constitution Act became the country’s law, consisting of a charter, a section explaining the rights of indigenous peoples, some remnants of the Constitution Act of 1867, and others, not to mention the various general laws that help form the constitutional basis of this country.
Over the past decades, the Charter has affected Canadians in countless ways; it helped guarantee the rights to a fair trial, opened the door to medically assisted death, allowed prisoners to vote in elections, and limited the ways Canadians could express themselves.
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Yet Canadians cannot – as Americans can – go and see their founding documents. There can be no worship in Ottawa or Winnipeg to see the documents that protect our rights to worship as we wish or to associate with whomever we wish.
Not only are the Charter or Section 35 – on Indigenous Rights – not on display in Canada, but there are no other honorable documents, such as the British North American Act (BNA).
There are a number of reasons for this. The first is that the 1982 Constitution Act is not an original Canadian document in itself. Rather, it – and therefore the charter – is part of the Canada Act of 1982, a law passed in the United Kingdom. Then the originals are British property.
Even if Canadians could see the original charter in the original constitution, what would it look like? What if the UK sends the original beam for display? The Ottawa PDF file on the consolidation of constitutional acts from 1867 to 1982 is 112 pages long, a parallel text in French and English, with a preamble and the old BNA Act. How will this show?
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James Muir, a legal historian at the University of Alberta, says these documents are probably not as interesting visually, unfortunately.
“At the time when it was produced in the 80’s, it was always produced only by typing, right?” And that’s typewriting on paper, “Muir said. “There is not a very large artifact, a symbolic artifact… The charter exists more often in the way we talk about it than anything else.”
The government is creating a poster version of the charter that can be downloaded or ordered, but it is not an original document, even if it is printed on enough royal parchment paper.
The BNA law – which is on parchment, which is stretched calfskin – seems outdated and radiates gravity. But it’s not in Canada either. In 1999, an Ottawa citizen visited Victoria Tower in London to see the original document, where it is in a warehouse next to the Dog Tax Waiver Act.
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“There, inside a thin, red, hard cardboard box, is a 47-page document printed on fine calfskin and bound with a wrinkled red ribbon. It measures 34 by 20 centimeters, slightly larger than a magazine. “After 132 years, the front page has taken on the weathered look of a pirate card,” wrote reporter Ian McLeod.
What Canadians can see from time to time is the proclamation document. It solemnly declares Canada’s status as an “independent state” and bears the Queen’s signature, but does not contain any of the basic principles clarified in America’s founding documents.
In fact, there are two copies.
The first has been damaged by water since the day it was signed in the rain 40 years ago, and the second has a stain of red ink on it damaged by protesters in July 1983. Both have sometimes been shown at exhibitions. The replica of the raindrop was on display at the Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg for six months ending in February 2020.
However, there is no permanent home. Combined, the two documents, according to Library and Archives Canada, have been displayed 18 times since 1982, over a period of time. Throughout the pandemic era, they were in stock.
• Email: tdawson@postmedia.com | Twitter: tylerrdawson
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