Editor:
April 17 marked the 30th anniversary of the enactment of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Canadians have been a proudly free people long before that document was written and will continue to be so into perpetuity.
I do worry about the erosion of the power of our elected officials and the concentration of authority in the hands of the judiciary.
Far too often in the last three decades, it has been the Supreme Court of Canada that has addressed the most bitter social and legal controversies, be it abortion, euthanasia, homosexual marriage, prisoner voting, drug use, pornography and, pretty soon, prostitution.
The judiciary did not seek this new power, to be fair, rather, it enveloped them because successive federal and provincial governments of all parties were too cowardly to confront these divisive subjects because they feared a challenge under the charter.
This is a dangerous trend that should not be supinely accepted by any citizen whatever their political affiliation.
Abraham Lincoln warned in his inaugural address of 1861: "that if the policy of government... is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court... the people will have ceased to be their own rulers..."
Steven Austin
