The Mascia judgment: Justice denied - The Métropolitain

The Mascia judgment: Justice denied - The Métropolitain

Justice Mascia twisted fact, reason and logic to buttress the bankrupt notion so many of the politically correct have that we must maintain our "social peace" on language. Here's a news flash... there is no social peace on language. Every day non-francophone citizens are demeaned by words and actions from legislators to police officers to ticket takers to bus drivers to revenue agents to the OQLF and the list goes on. They are demeaned because the effects of 101 - overtly and subliminally - have led too many in authority to assume that "les autres" are not at all equal. Social peace is not the goal of a free society. Social justice is.
There is another fundamental element of justice Mascia ignored. The doctrine of acquired rights. From the time of Montesquieu and his seminal work "De l'esprit des lois," western law has attempted to guard against encroaching on rights citizens had enjoyed prior to the passage of new law. Indeed, international legal covenants on ethnic, religious, cultural and language rights have sought to protect this very principle because it is so crucial to safeguarding minorities. By this doctrine - even without reference to Canadian constitutional protection - if Quebec was an independent state at the time 101 was passed, the acquired rights of English speaking citizens at the time of passage would have to be respected.
Just two and a half years ago this province joined in the Quebec City Declaration of the Inter-Parliamentary union reaffirming these principles. Just two and a half weeks ago tens of thousands of Montrealers marched in the streets for freedom of expression in the wake of the Paris massacres. The hypocrisy is stifling. When will we bring to an end, to paraphrase Gary Shapiro, "second-class citizenship in a first-class country?" History has taught us that the courage to confront a society's treachery often starts with bold and brave judges. Justice Mascia missed an opportunity to let truth triumph.