Page 72 - ACTL Journal_Sum24

To understand the difference between them and why that differ- ence matters, we have to start at the beginning of the story. The rights story in North America started in England. The 17th cen- tury in England inspired new political philosophies like those of Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and eventually, John Stewart Mill. These were philosophies which protected individuals from having their freedoms interfered with by governments. These were the theories about civil liberties, which came to dominate the rights discussion for 300 years.
They were also the theories that journeyed across the Atlantic Ocean and found themselves firmly planted in American soil, re- ceiving confirmation in the Declaration of Independence, guar- anteeing that every man enjoyed the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness and that the government existed to bring about the best condition for the preservation of those rights.
And thus was born the essence of social justice for Americans; the belief that every individual American had the same right as every other individual American, to be free from government interven- tion. To be equal was to have the same rights; no difference.
Interestingly, unlike the United States, we in Canada were never concerned only with the rights of individuals. Our historical roots involve a constitutional appreciation that the two groups at the constitutional bargaining table – the French and the En- glish – could remain distinct and unassimilated, yet equal in their worth and entitlement. That is unlike the United States whose individualism promoted assimilation and the melting pot. We in Canada have always conceded that the right to integrate, based on differences, has as much legal and political integrity as the right to assimilate.
Where for others pluralism and diversity are fragmenting magnets, for Canadians they’re unifying. Where for oth- ers assimilation is the social goal, for us it represents the inequitable obliteration of the identities that define us. Where for others treating everyone the same is the domi- nant governing principle, for us it takes its place alongside the principle that treating everyone the same can result in ignoring the differences that need to be respected if we’re to be a truly inclusive society.
In any event, the individualism at the core of the political philosophy of rights articulated in the American constitu- tion, ascribing equal civil, political and legal rights to every individual regardless of differences, became America’s most significant international export and the exclusive rights barometer for countries in the western world. Concern for the rights of the individual monopolize the remedial endeavors of the pursuers of justice everywhere. It was for- mal equality, it ignored group identities and realities, and indeed, regarded collective interest as subversive of true rights. It was a theory that saw no distinction between yell- ing “fire” in a crowded theater and yelling “theater” in a crowded firehall.
It wasn’t until World War II that we came to the realiza- tion that having chained ourselves to the pedestal of the individual, we’d been ignoring rights of a fundamentally different kind, namely the rights of individuals in differ- ent groups to retain their different identities without fear of the loss of life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness. It was the Second World War which jolted us permanently from our complacent belief that the only way to protect rights was to keep governments at a distance and protect each individual individually. What jolted us was the horri-
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