Canada Day 2023

All Out to Build the New!

Re-occupation of Parliament Hill during Canada 150 celebrations, June 30, 2017

Canada Day 2023 marks the 156th anniversary of Confederation established by the Royal Proclamation of 1867. It is an occasion to consider what it means when our home is built on Native land and to decry what Canada stands for regarding its relations with Indigenous Peoples since Confederation and before and, most importantly, today. These relations establish an authority over Indigenous Nations which negates 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.

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.

It is an occasion to recognize the necessity to establish a constituent assembly on a democratic basis to draft a modern 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. The limitations advantage narrow private interests and keep the people disempowered. The need to renew the democracy and to renew the nation so that its aim is the well-being 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 get rid of the monarchy and 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 would recognize the rights of all human persons by virtue of being human. It would end all notions of superior and inferior cultures and races, rooted in the Eurocentric concept of founding nations and racist divisions. It must provide enabling legislation to guarantee the rights of all 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.

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.

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!