Regional Perspectives on Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms: A Re–examination of Democratic Elitism

Abstract

In The Clash of Rights, Paul. M . Sniderman, Joseph Fletcher, Peter Russell and Philip Tetlock have challenged the orthodox view of “democratic elitism” and “value consensus” with respect to support for civil rights and liberties. Based on analysis of Canadian attitudes toward the 1982 Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Sniderman et al, found that support for rights claims varied more among elites than between elites and masses. They extend this finding to a hypothesis that competing political elites are prone to exploit disagreement over rights issues for purposes of partisan electoral advantage. They find that the Conservative officeholders are typically less supportive of rights claims, while New Democratic party and Parti Québécois legislators tend to be more supportive. On most issues, the Liberals are (surprise!) in between. These findings lead to conclusions such as “the issue of bilingualism is political, not social.” More generally, Sniderman and his colleagues suggest that there is broad, evenly distributed support for rights among the Canadian public, and that conflict over rights is largely attributable to partisan competition among political leaders.