Just Words: Constitutional Charter Of Rights And Social Wrong By Joel Bakan

In 1982 the Canadian Constitution was patriated in Canada, and with it came the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a document that set out to create a just society with liberty and justice for all (3). This new constitutional document however, may not be the beacon for social justice that it has been trumped up to seem. In Joel Bakan’s book, “Just Words: Constitutional Rights and Social Wrong,” he argues that the document is inherently flawed because it is enforced through the means of conservative institutions (3). In this book review I argue that the book does an effective job critiquing the Charter. The paper will be formatted in the following way. First I will discuss the background of the book, specifically the creation of the Charter. Secondly,

The Charter promises legal and moral equality of all people regardless of gender, race, age, or language preference, and was supposed to cover all areas of fundamental freedoms. The belief was that by codifying these rights into the foundation of Canada, it would achieve what Pierre Trudeau would call a Just Society. In 1982, the Charter, and the rest of the constitution act of 1982 was signed into law (3). However, not everyone agrees that that charter achieves these lofty

Most prominently, is that is an inherently biased books, and while it does explain its points well, the bias of the author is fairly evident from page one, getting stronger with each page. Though this may be a minor issue if a reader agrees with the books premise, it means the book is not really trying to convince anyone, and seems to be more pandering to an audience it already assumes agrees which gets egregious as points. The second flaw is that the books is dated, nearly twenty years at this points. While this is not a fault on the point of the writer, it does mean that some of its points (regarding sexuality equality rights) for example no longer hold