Sometimes I have no shame, so when the Government of Canada, even the current government, does something to honour the Rt Hon John G Diefenbaker's legacy, I applaud.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced support to rejuvenate the Diefenbaker Canada Centre, helping the Centre maintain and promote Canadian research, culture and history. The announcement comes as the Centre celebrates two key milestones: the fiftieth anniversary of the Canadian Bill of Rights and the thirtieth birthday of the Centre itself.
“John Diefenbaker believed all Canadians were equal before the law, and that the powers of government were not without limit. Above all, he believed in freedom,” Prime Minister Harper said. “To give practical expression to these profoundly valuable ideas, he stood before the House of Commons on Dominion Day in 1960, and introduced Canada’s Bill of Rights. It is entirely fitting that 50 years after John Diefenbaker endowed Canada with its Bill of Rights, our Government continues to support the Diefenbaker Canada Centre as an important national treasure.”
link: PM announces support for Diefenbaker Canada Centre - Prime Minister of Canada
Too few Canadians are aware of the significance of the Canadian Bill of Rights which established, long before the Charter of Rights, that all Canadians are equal before the federal government. About a decade after Diefenbaker's Bill of Rights became law, the Supreme Court of Canada, in the Drybones decision, ruled that the Bill of Rights held precedent over all other federal laws, giving it quasi constitutional status.
"Dief the Chief" assisted me in researching a 2nd-year university Canadian history essay on the Bill with personal interviews and access to documentation in the Parliamentary Library. It was a heady experience for a 19yo to sit with the former PM on a sofa that once belonged to Sir John A Macdonald for a first-hand lesson about why a full constitutional agreement (such as the one later produced by Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien) could never have been achieved in 1960. The Bill of Rights applied only in the federal jurisdiction, unlike the later Charter of Rights that applies to all levels of government in Canada, but it's importance as a preliminary step and as a precedent cannot be underestimated.
The last time I saw the Chief was in the Bessborough hotel in Saskatoon. He was there fulfilling responsibilities as Chancellor of the University of Saskatchewan and I was on a 3-provinces tour promoting Glendon College to prairie high school students. We met in a line-up at the hotel coffee shop and, remembering our meeting in Ottawa a year and a half previous, he and his wife Olive immediately invited me to join them for breakfast. If there was a bigger rush than a private interview with the former PM in his House of Commons office, it was sitting with him for breakfast in a crowded room in his native Saskatchewan where it felt like everyone was wondering "who (and why) is the kid with the Chief?" The why was because he never tired promoting the principle of equality among all Canadians; the principle his law guaranteed.
It has never been easy defending John Diefenbaker; his achievements are too often overshadowed by his political troubles in leading the Progressive Conservative party. So when the government moves to preserve his legacy and make his records more available to the public, I am gladdened and obliged to blog my thanks.
