Sunday marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Proclamation of the Constitution Act, 1982
. Queen Elizabeth II, then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chrétien, the justice minister at the time, and André Ouellet, the registrar general, put their signatures on the document, as raindrops dripped on the page.
Yet, Canadians cannot — as Americans can — go see their foundational documents. There can be no pilgrimage to Ottawa or Winnipeg to see the papers that protect our rights to worship as we please or associate with whom we please. Even if Canadians were able to see the original charter within the original constitution, what would it look like? What if Britain shipped the original sheaf over for display? Ottawa’s PDF of the Consolidation of the Constitution Acts 1867 to 1982 rings in at 112 pages long, parallel text in French and English, with a preamble and the old BNA Act. How would that be displayed?Article content
The government does produce a poster version of the charter that can be downloaded or ordered, but it’s not an original document, even if it is printed on sufficiently regal parchment-coloured paper.
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