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Canada Day 2021 The Need to Build Canada on the New Historical BasisCanada Day 2021 marks the 154th anniversary of Confederation established by the Royal Proclamation of 1867. Canadians from coast to coast to coast are marking the occasion by joining as one with the Indigenous peoples to decry what Canada stands for as concerns its relations with Indigenous peoples since Confederation and before and, most importantly, today. These relations are enshrined in the form of property relations which establish an authority over Indigenous nations, negating their right to their lands, their resources and their way of life, free from the interference of the Anglo-Canadian colonial state constituted in 1867.
Nothing could better underscore the necessity to enact a new Constitution to replace the one that was used to found Canada under the conditions that prevailed in 1867 and its alleged modernization in 1982. The 1982 incorporation of a Charter of Rights and Freedoms further underscored that a power above the people gets to define the limitations on rights. Amongst other things, the limitation which advantage the ruling power criminalizes the right to speak and act in a manner that is to the advantage of the people. The need to renew the democracy and to renew the nation so that its aim is the wellbeing of all, not the few, is a historical challenge which must be accomplished in order for Canada to meet the needs of its people and contribute the same to the peoples of the world. A modern constitution must abolish the Royal Prerogative on which the present Constitution is based. It must vest sovereignty in the people and get rid of the police powers which maintain privileges in lieu of rights.
A modern constitution recognizes the rights of all human persons by virtue of being human. It must end all notions of superior and inferior cultures and races, rooted in the Eurocentric concept of founding nations and racist divisions, by recognizing that citizens and residents have rights by virtue of being human. It must provide enabling legislation to guarantee these rights and make governments accountable for their negation and violation. A modern constitution must introduce a political process that guarantees equal membership in the body politic and forms of governance where members of the polity have a say and control on all decisions which affect their lives and the practical means to hold to account those in government. The renewal of the political process is required so that citizens and residents can directly decide the matters that concern them and participate in solving problems and take up in earnest the humanizing of the social and natural environment.
Canada also needs an anti-war government that makes Canada a zone for peace and demands that problems in international relations are solved without violence and war. History calls on the peoples of Canada and Quebec and the Indigenous peoples and Métis nation to establish modern arrangements among themselves based on a free and equal union of sovereign entities. The challenges are great but the present conditions beckon us all to rise to the task to build a bright future where the rights of all are guaranteed. Let the working class constitute the nation and vest sovereignty in the people with a modern constitution that builds Canada on the new historical basis! All Out to Build the New!
This article was published in Article Link:   Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca |
The
revelation of unmarked graves linked to the residential school system
places the responsibility squarely in the hands of the Canadian state
and government which continue to uphold the principles on the basis of
which Canada was founded. The nature of the relations was established
by Canada's founding fathers at the behest of the British colonizers.
Sir John A. MacDonald was the face of the assimilationist policy
whereby Indigenous peoples were considered non-persons. As wards of the
state, they could be stolen from their families, subjected to brutal
inhuman treatment and even buried in unmarked graves when they
succumbed to the conditions imposed on them by the religious orders
acting at the behest of the government because their names had been
stolen from them.
A modern constitution for Canada
is needed
to end the colonial
injustice and old arrangements suffocating the Indigenous peoples. Such
a constitution must implement the principle of
nation-to-nation relations. If the federation is to be free and equal,
it must recognize Quebec's right to self-determination and the rights
of the Métis nation as well.
A
modern Canada and a modern constitution are needed to stop the
nation-wrecking of those who have submitted the country to the
decision-making power and empire-building of a foreign power and the
financial interests and oligopolies in its service, supranational
trade arrangements and U.S.-led military alliances and wars. Canada
needs
independence so Canadians can develop modern
human-centred social relations among themselves and with all humanity.