Commentary We are regularly treated to surveys of public opinion about Canada’s 1982 Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canadians love it, though the vast majority have never read it. Not a word. The real story of the Charter, the reasons for it, and its political and moral consequences are widely ignored. Prior to our founding, settlers in the colonies that became Canada lived under English law according to English Parliamentary legislation and common-law precedent. Laws made by Parliament were considered the voice of the people, even—Vox Populi, Vox Dei—as the voice of God, and therefore the “supreme law” of the land. This is still the case in England, which to this day has no written Charter or Constitution. The overarching message of this long, hard-won British tradition is that the elected Representatives of the people are free to make or unmake the laws of the realm without fear of dictation …