Human rights organizations and feminists rose to support a movement that forced all the men involved in the Charter drafting to back down. At the time, federal ministers Monique Bégin and Judy Erola led the charge.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on April 25, 2022.

OTTAWA—As the 40th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was celebrated last week, much was written about the effect of the new law on Canada.

Some great ideas on Charter improvements, including multiple suggestions on how to tighten up the notwithstanding clause, open the door for a new constitutional debate.

But there were two elements of the Charter battle that got little attention.

The first was the role played by women politicians of all parties to save the equality clause in the Charter.

Back in 1982, I was the sole woman in the Opposition Ontario Liberal caucus. We were six women altogether representing three parties in the 125-seat assembly.

The fight for Charter equality was the first and only time that we all got together to strategize for a Charter change to fully protect women’s rights.

At the time of the initial Charter agreement, the rights of women, articulated in Sec. 28 of the agreement, were supposed to be subject to the Sec. 33 notwithstanding clause.

What that meant was that if any government wanted to ignore equality rights, all it had to do was invoke the charter to bypass women’s right to equal pay, right to access housing, healthcare, etc.

The charter of inequality had been signed by all first ministers except Quebec, so male politicians were loath to reopen with the document.

Women across the country were livid, and Canada witnessed a female political consensus the likes of which it has never experienced before or since.

Human rights organizations and feminists rose to support a movement that forced all the men involved in the Charter drafting to back down.

At the time, federal ministers Monique Bégin and Judy Erola led the charge. They reached out to female legislators across the country from all political parties, organizing a movement to force all parliaments to support a Charter amendment that would remove the notwithstanding clause from any oversight of women’s rights.

Bégin would later become beloved for her work in the creation of the Canada Health Act. Well-known as the mother of medicare, in 1984, Bégin implemented the legislative framework for hospital care across the country. That legislation secured universal access for all which has remained in place to this day.

Erola, the first female minister of mines, was equally capable, reaching out to legislators across party lines in an effort to secure women’s equality.

The pair organized a group of female politicians across the country, determined to amend the proposed Charter.

We were fighting an uphill battle.

Some premiers were adamant that there could be no changes to the initial document that had been agreed to by all provinces except Quebec.

Since any new change might prevent the Canadian Constitution from being repatriated from Westminster, the federal cabinet did not want to rock the boat.

The notwithstanding clause had already covered other groups, like francophone minorities outside Quebec, so there was a belief that any change, including full equality for women could cause the whole house of cards to collapse.

But the ferocity of women’s anger could not be ignored. Premiers across the country quickly backed down when they saw how women had united in favour of our equality.

The proposed Charter was amended and women’s rights were fully protected before the document was repatriated in April 1982.

The second element of the charter which received little attention but prompted huge social change was the section which proffered rights to all Canadians in both official languages.

Until the Charter was drawn up to protect minority linguistic rights, most francophones outside Quebec had little access to schooling in their language.

They were undereducated and poorly paid, making up the lowest earning group in the country.

As the Charter took hold, and provinces were forced by law to start offering minority language services, that situation turned around.

With robust French-language education available for francophones across the country, the level of education catapulted quickly.

Within twenty years, the poorly-paid, undereducated francophones became the best-educated, and most highly paid group in the country.

Unlike women’s rights, minority language rights were subject to the notwithstanding clause, causing Ottawa Liberal Member of Parliament Jean-Robert Gauthier to vote against the Charter repatriation.

Gauthier did not secure institutional bilingualism for all provinces, nor did the Charter enshrine French-language school boards and education. But the result of the Charter was that every province was eventually cajoled or sued into guaranteeing minority language rights in education.

Women and francophones were the real Charter winners.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

Erin O’Toole may look back on the day following the first French debate as the turning point in his purposeful path to government.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on September 13, 2021.

Quebec Premier François Legault’s “dangerous” claims may have just cost Erin O’Toole the election.

Angry warnings not to vote for Liberals, New Democrats, or Greens were supposed to help the Conservative leader. Early in the campaign, Legault made it very clear that his sympathies were with O’Toole.

But that was before O’Toole revealed that part of his costed platform, meant cancelling a $6-billion daycare transfer already inked in principle by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the premier.

Now Legault is hedging his bets, calling on Quebecers to support a nationalist party that will devolve more powers with no conditions to Quebec.

He is also suggesting that the best outcome would be a Conservative minority with a strong Bloc Québécois contingent.

That pitch from a self-described “nationalist” can only serve to help the Bloc Québécois, which is fighting to defeat Conservatives in multiple eastern Quebec ridings.

Legault’s intervention will serve to solidify the Liberal vote in the greater Montreal area, and drive wavering federalists back into the Liberal camp.

But it may be more costly for O’Toole in the rest of Canada as Legault is lauding the Tory leader for staying out of Quebec’s business.

The premier is particularly irate that Trudeau has expressed support for community groups wanting to fight the new Quebec law prohibiting public sector workers from wearing hijabs, kippahs, and turbans.

Trudeau is the only federal leader who has spoken out against this nationalist firing offence. Even turban wearing Jagmeet Singh vows he will not protect the right to religious headgear because to do so would interfere with provincial jurisdiction.

In another pitch for nationalist votes, during the French debate, Singh underscored his party’s commitment to the Sherbrooke declaration, where New Democrats vow that a simple majority in a provincial referendum is sufficient to break up Canada.

But his debate appeal to the ghost of Jack Layton has not moved many votes in Quebec as most observers expect the party to win only one or two of the 78 seats in the province.

The biggest boomerang effect of the Legault intervention may come from outside Quebec.

During the French TVA debate, a senior citizen from New Brunswick pleaded for federal involvement to develop national standards for long-term care.

Legault wants federal cash for care, but no conditions attached. O’Toole is promising just such help, even though more than 4,000 Quebecers died during the pandemic while in provincial long-term care.

As Trudeau pointed out during the French-language televised debate on Sept. 8, the premier didn’t mind calling in the Canadian Army when the bodies started piling up.

Quebec nationalists may want to give their premier more powers but if the pandemic has taught us something, it is that our health-care system needs more federal help.

At the moment, we are rolling out multiple vaccine systems and the confusion around the vaccine passport is a direct result of the federated health system.

Trudeau says it is his duty to protect the Canada Health Act. O’Toole says he supports some privatization and wants to transfer billions in unconditional cash transfers. The fine print of his promise shows financing is backloaded, with most monies not coming for another half-decade.

In a tight election, the statement by Legault may turn out to be the kiss of death.

As we near the finish line, this race is still too close to call. This is not where the O’Toole expected to be after a galloping campaign start.

His momentum stalled at the first debate as soon as Trudeau pointedly attacked O’Toole’s page 90 promise to end the ban on assault weapons.

O’Toole’s first mistake was including the issue in his lengthy playbook in the first place. But he added fuel to the fire by calling a press conference the following day to focus on his anti-crime strategy.

What was supposed to be a platform on how to stem the increase in urban gang violence during the Trudeau tenure ended up being damage control on why the guns that killed 14 women in École Polytechnique would be legalized under his watch.

O’Toole may look back on the day following the first French debate as the turning point in his purposeful path to government. Until that moment, O’Toole had been sticking to his knitting, referencing his famous plan; smiling and calmly projecting the image of a potential prime minister.

The first debate shattered that image and started his downward spiral.

O’Toole’s fall from grace, and potential victory, was further accelerated by Legault’s nationalist blessing.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.

The debate about that strategy could well decide the next election.

By Sheila Copps
First published in The Hill Times on May 18, 2020.

OTTAWA—The prime minister’s admission that we are not doing well by our most vulnerable seniors should come as no surprise.

In reality, we live in a culture obsessed with the fountain of youth.

Media messaging is mostly about how to look young, stay young, be young.

Face creams and rejuvenating emollients do not target older women, they seek to influence the buying power of 20-year-olds.

The spike in plastic surgery and Botox enhancement procedures amongst young people is a direct result of the value we place on the superficiality of looking young.

Trendsetters include the Kardashians whose only claim to fame appears to be what they can wear and who they can sell it to.

Just try getting a job when you reach middle age. At the ripe old age of 50, it is not uncommon to lose your job, whether on a shrinking assembly line or because of a business failure or sale.

It matters little that you might have multiple years of experience in your field. Experience is generally not considered an asset. Employers want younger people whose wage rates are lower.

The survival of many companies actually depends on hiring less experienced people at reduced wage rates.

Just look at the pay differentials between an employee of Air Canada and Tango.

When I left politics at the ripe old age of 52, I was headhunted by a number of potential employers but in the final analysis my advanced age was a factor in their decision to go elsewhere.

Ageism is not only alive and well in the workforce, it is particularly prevalent in politics.

This is the only area where the more experience you get, the more people want to get rid of you.

When Justin Trudeau was elected in the sweep of 2015, the majority of his caucus and cabinet were under the age of 45. There were a few experienced ministers, like Lawrence MacAulay, Ralph Goodale, and Carolyn Bennett. But the general feeling amongst most Liberals was that the Prime Minister’s Office preferred to work with those who had little political experience, but met the age demographic.

After all, having an attractive young minister in front of the camera looks good for the party and the caucus.

The second term has brought more wisdom to the job, with ministers who are older and wiser by all accounts.

Some have learned on the job and other newer, but senior faces have been appointed in the last cabinet shuffle by a more wizened prime minister facing a minority government.

There is a nation-wide consensus about the problem. Something needs to be done to secure safe living accommodations for vulnerable people in long-term care. But consensus on the solution will be much harder to reach.

The Bloc Québécois has made it very clear, that it wants cash with no conditions.

The prime minister promises to respect the Constitution, which clearly designates the provinces as responsible for delivery of care but determines it is a shared responsibility.

Of all the provinces, COVID containment in long-term care facilities in Quebec has been the least successful. The number of deaths there is almost equal to all deaths in the rest of the country.

According to an article in The Globe and Mail, as of May 7, 2,114 of the 2,631 Quebecers who died of COVID-19 lived in an elder-care facility. That’s nearly twice as many as in Ontario, where 1,111 long-term care residents died. In addition, Quebec’s health-care system is missing 11,600 workers who are either sick, quarantined, or unwilling to show up.

So, the notion being floated by the Bloc Québécois that Ottawa should hand over money with no strings attached is a non-starter.

Almost 40 years ago, the Canada Health Act solidified the role of the federal government in establishing standards for institutional hospitalization.

That move is a model that could be considered in any attempt to reform the patchwork of care standards currently in place across the country.

The New Democratic Party proposition to shut down all private nursing homes is completely unworkable.

There are thousands of Canadians living in non-contaminated circumstances in homes across the country and the Canadian government cannot afford to nationalize their living quarters.

The fact that NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is promoting nationalization is proof that his party’s last-place status is not about to change any time soon.

We need a national strategy to restore confidence in long-term care.

The debate about that strategy could well decide the next election.

Sheila Copps is a former Jean Chrétien-era cabinet minister and a former deputy prime minister. Follow her on Twitter at @Sheila_Copps.