The Impact of Charter-based Judicial Review on Pan-Canadian Cultural Citizenship

This dissertation evaluates the impact of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982) jurisprudence on Canada's cultural rights structure and cultural citizenship. In total, the dissertation analyzes 49 Supreme Court Charter decisions in the areas of minority language, multiculturalism and aboriginal issues, as well as their reception by governmental authorities. It argues that Charter-based judicial review has confirmed and pushed further the choice Canada made after the Second World War to promote a polyethnic citizenship. The dissertation also formulates three larger theoretical claims. First, that the recognition of specific cultural rights for certain groups that go beyond fundamental political and civil rights brings about positive legal change for minorities. This has especially been the case for the Anglophone minority inside Quebec and the Francophone minority outside Quebec, as well as for aboriginal communities across Canada. Secondly, that constitutionally entrenching rights and the transfer of power to the judiciary to invalidate laws that contravene those rights, is crucial for greater accommodation of diversity. As shown in the Canadian case, the Supreme Court's rulings in favour of minorities have been enforced by governmental authorities. Thirdly, that institutional nation-building objectives limit judicial review's potential for facilitating greater accommodation of diversity. The ideal of a polyethnic pan-Canadian citizenship prevents the recognition of new self-government rights for aboriginal peoples and Francophone Quebecers, even though there is interpretive space for such a constitutional reading.