Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - November 21, 1981, Winnipeg, Manitoba Override May be masterstroke Ottawa the evidence is in Han so canadians will have a record in future times of the Las ditch Effort of nation building afoot in the land late this week a trans a tripartite bargaining operating from the floor of the House of commons and out of uncounted Parlia ment Hill to sweeten the constitutional parliament was acting with a single will to secure the support of the so that there would be no outsiders neither nor nor the now nationally aroused women to the constitutional Resolution when it leaves the commons it was a parliament at once and the Resolution now before Parlia ment even with the flaws pre occupying All a remarkable document that will give us room to grow and change and Mould the institutions that tomorrows society will the Effort to build a National consensus had not stopped when the premiers headed Home from their historic conference the Docu ment that prime minister Trudeau tabled in the commons wednesday went a Long perhaps As far As it need to win the hearts and minds of and meet the concerns out lined in his final press conference by the bitter Rene with Trudeau lat Date arrange ment with the English language pre Miers the Constitution now Grants the provinces the right to compensation As our Constitution they choose to opt out of changes in the education and cultural Field and go their own in the pre Empting the Quebec separatists most effective tacitly accepts a special status for Quebec in the cultural but the who lost their claim to aboriginal and treaty have reason to be though to a lesser do the women who Laboured hard to get a declaration of the Equality of men and women into the constitutional resold in practical terms they May have lost in symbolic terms they have lost a fair As the Reso Lution they Are fundamentally equal with but maybe one Day not yet no one not even the who have yet to sit Down for negotiating sessions with Ottawa truly or finally and a fairer judgment would be that Over the Long haul we have Well and truly in All three Pierre Trudeau government would have done things differently committing the nation to recognizing aboriginal and treaty entrenching inviolable rights and freedoms in his and resisting an opting out process for the had he had his we would have had a lesser the Quebec and the legislative override de spite their current application to equal Ity each in their Way give our society More room to grow and change As we wish to that override provision allows parliament and the provincial Legislatures to declare that an act or a portion of an act can operate even if it contravenes sections of the charter of those sections Deal with our fundamental our Legal rights encounters with the police and Justice and our guarantees against on the surface any it makes our safeguards less it keeps our Legislatures us Joan Cohen Ottawa editor our Legislatures have not always done but then neither have the Canadas premiers eloquently argued in the failed constitutional talks a year ago that the Legislatures Are bet Ter equipped than the courts to guide social and came out four Square against the Trudeau had the premiers cared to think about a Compromise arrangement was even then near at an Over ride provision already exists in the dormant Bill of and in several provincial human rights codes across the but until two weeks ago the premiers were not looking for ways to help Pierre Trudeau Salvage an entrenched constitutional charter of that search was under Way in the solution apparently came to them from a new a 1981 Dalhousie Law review article by labor lawyer and longtime supreme court critic Paul now teaching at Harvard Weiler noted his own mixed feel Ings about the prospects of having our rights turned Over to the determinations of the courts in As powerful a Legal document As the not least of All because of our supreme courts sorry record in its Bill of rights could embolden court but he went on then to make the Strong Case that the inclusion of an override with its escape could embolden the the judges could begin stepping Forward to define our knowing that society need not suffer if it its mistakes could be corrected through the political pro but the article contains another implicit argument about the importance of such a tracking the history of the United states supreme court from a timid arbiter in the 19th Century applying the letter of the Law to an activist court in recent times which in fact created from ordering the desegregation of schools to granting women the right to out Lawing capital punishment As cruel and unusual Weiler wonders if the courts have the Wisdom to use these massive he found the answer in the comments of one former supreme court Justice we Are not final be cause we Are we Are infallible because we Are it has often been noted that As society mores it is often in the rather than in the Legisla that the first challenges come to our old ways of doing but the override clause provides a second risk of Public outrage if parliament and the legislature chose to enact a Law that violated the provisions of the Bill of it would have to announce openly in its Legisla Tion it was doing and risk Public it would not do so lobbying today against the Over ride clause in the special provision declaring men and women the women groups warn that their hoped for Progress toward such things As equal rights and equal pay in the workplace has been in a Way they Are right to be on the Equality of the sexes will be a Pierre Trudeau had to balance Many conflicting pressures to achieve agreement on constitutional Patria Tion Little less absolute than once promised and this has a symbolic but charter or no charter they will not win their Battle in a year or in a and the Legislatures will not impede the prominent civil rights author Ity Walter Tarnopolsky in Points out that women in fact have had Little help from the despite the anti discrimination legislation now univer Sal in provincial rights he re cites a string of famous cases in recent years where they the most famous recently being rulings by the Ontario court of Appeal denying two youngsters the right to join mens hockey and softball but in discussing the possible use of the override Legal authorities in the provinces do not talk of the social issues of the they talk of legislation regulating construction where men May be forced by Law to Wear even if their Faith requires them to Wear turbans of age provisions in for example in the recruitment of pilots of jobs where it would be legitimate to bar persons with records As genuine Security risk to permit the establishment of senior Citi Zens mundane flexibility useful but then nobody has quite foreseen where the charter of rights will take in big items or in a Large that is Why we Are protecting ourselves and our futures when we decline to lock i absolute Guaran Weiler talks at length about the popular support in Canada for prime minister Trudeau charter of and the Assumption that it is just another capable of being applied by the courts in the same Way statutes Are but he notes that the charter of rights is a different kind of it uses such concepts As due and Equality before the Law and cruel and unusual Pun requiring judges to Rule on essentially moral some Many years Down the As new moral issues the judges May have to Deal with a 21st Century equivalent of today still Lively abortion or capital punishment Dilem do we Trust them to dictate the rules this nation will alter beyond belief under the constitutional Resolution we Are now bringing through the efforts of the we Are assured that the parliaments and and the popular will now be assured full role in shaping Why a Good tory voted for nip by Fred Cleverley Charlie the dropped into the Carlton club on wednesday to have lunch with his Hugh the Advertis ing the waiter had not even delivered the second round of martinis not stirred when Charlie dropped a Bombshell by telling his Friend this he had voted for the the Carlton clubs automatic alarm system sounded at the Mere mention of the party the clubs member ship contained so Many conservative appointees that the executive had decided to instal the alarm so that conversations could be adjusted if there were spies who had a hand in those double sided conservative the ones where the dont had seemed to and the message Stop us now came through loud and was shocked at the it was More than wanting to be on the winning Charlie it was a matter of i must admit that As soon As those television ads i knew that your Agency had done it and that the nip had the election in the he was More than willing to explain Why a mature business helped to wipe out the Lyon despite its claim to be on the Side of the the wealthy and the the automatic alarm was going it was hopeless from the Charlie when you get right Down to those conservatives wanted to run the government like a and anyone who watches the big leagues of government on the National knows that no government can be run like a Joe Clark and look what happened to i not stand in the Way of the i thought they were voting nip because they wanted rent and the help with their Home purchases that the older generation never then it dawned on they were really voting nip because they had my not at this came to me after years of thinking that the Young did not give a tinkers Youknot what about us older after i thought about i decided that they were old enough to make their own Way in and if they wanted to make my life i would not stand in their i realized that if i voted conserva Tive i was really looking after my not i wanted them to have the Chance to become and i really believed that they would be in a better position to do so if they were not saddled with All the costs of big i know now that if i had been As smart in politics As i have been in my vote would have gone perhaps to the because heaven knows they need some thing to give them this time i decided to vote for i did not even know the name of the new Democrat in my constituent but then i figured that a lot of other people who would be voting for him would not have known if they had not been told at their last Union this time my vote was for Charlie not for my not for not for anyone but think about it this what with Trudeau and his gang shipping the country to the hot place in a handbags and cutting equalization payments at the same what Chance has any government in Manitoba to exercise fiscal try it and people hate if you dont believe ask Sterling or Don if the conservatives had been returned to they Are so single and so naive about that they would have tried to get to a balanced and would have succeeded Only in getting More people mad at them than there Are if that is those tories talk about the nip at least the nip does not have a hangup about winning an elec so this i voted i have less than ten years left before i the nip is in Power for four of and with any will squeak out a second just like they did the last thing in the world the nip will do is to attempt to have fiscal response they cannot be frightened of the big because they Are responsible for three quarters of they will not raise they will borrow just like they built Power All the time they were building Power stations everything was just Power stations do not have to be paid for until they Are then the Bills come in and the Power rates go Money that is borrowed by govern ment does not have to be paid Back until the government decides it should be paid the Way i figure i can finish out that part of my life when i have to pay High taxes without having to pay Back a cent of what will have to be if i were 20 years of i would vote but in past and i should be god to Cash in on this business of fiscal irresponsibility the time the Bills come ill be i dont know if the kids think about these but if they do All of us who Are past 50 owe them a big vote of if the election had been left up to we would have voted fiscal four years ago they voted fiscal responsibility because their Power rates had gone but who wants fiscal responsibility when we need other things now it took a lot of soul searching for me to vote but i did it and in this time i voted for Charlie we should smash alarm Bell before it drives us All Dps and Campaign much More effective when i heard the tories i heard the tories Jingle i knew we could it was too defensive and they were capitalizing on their weak not their Derek a former Community development worker and for the past seven years president of Credo group a Winnipeg based National film production did his first elec Tion and Campaign Ever for the Manitoba new it want economically rewarding but creatively it was very interesting and very and it sure was he said in an interview in his office on the third floor of a remodelled old House on Sherbrook Mazur and his Core staff of five were the ones who developed and produced some of the most effective political advertising Ever seen in a Manitoba election the packed the re source cake and the thumbs up hired the nip last january and placed on the party 20member elec Tion planning committee in Mazur said the key to his ads Success was that they were a component of an Overall election where the tories went he was that their ads and their Campaign did not in Mazur the timing and Content of the conservative ads were must have demoralized their own workers and succeeded Only in accentuating the prob Frances Russell lems they were having with the the tories did not advertise at All in the first two weeks of the Campaign when the nip was showing its Nega Tive ads with the say goodbye to the not to Mazur said this must have had a very demoralizing effect on conserva Tive the ads were eliciting a response at the door for nip giving them the idea that the Campaign was working with in tune with he we made a decision Early on to concentrate our Campaign on Televik electronic Media is Emo not the ads had to be easily connected with the Issue and something people would remember seeing and want to talk people were upset about so the suitcase was we didst have the Money to Fly around for pictures of resource projects for the and about resource so we came up with the idea of the the use of cigars was the Way we got across the message about benefits going to Only a negative advertising can be self de Struc Tive if it is used too so after Only two the party switched to the positive and showing Howard Paw Ley talking to a Little girl ing what knew the voters liked about his niceness and sincere the gymnast and people giving the thumbs up sign that people dont have to be ashamed to be nip the final used in the last four Days of the had an Impromptu choir election standing in the Snow in Kildonan Park singing the nip song about great great that Mazur was really for our own Campaign it was designed to get out the Mazur says his ads were Only a part of the nip in a five week Cam you cant change Public impressions about your strengths and you therefore Are Best to concentrate on the pluses you know you have rather than try to change Peoples Mazur said the nip Felt its strengths with voters centred on the poor econ and the fear of giveaways engendered by the Mega so those became the Advertis ing Mazur said the tories did the exact opposite in their Campaign they stressed their they tried to plug holes and when you try to plug you Only make them Mazur was the not the who put out the major and on rent people dont see handling rent issues As a major tory by emphasizing rent the tories were flogging a dead horse As far As they were concerned and doing some of our Advertis ing for Mazur was similarly critical of the tory final which he said was professional but off the one of their pluses was the Public perception of Lyon As a Strong yet the film doonesbury of him in a Park with kids contradicted As a it didst work and it even appeared the tory song was Good except for the final it had two dont and Mazur said the tory and attempted to create but it came out of there haunt been any earlier ads to Start a theme or to build to that Adas a it didst the tories saturation advertising in the campaigns last week could have been Mazur if the and had been because it was it Likely just made people and the More they had to watch the angrier they Mazur says the tories must either have been overconfident or getting Wacky poll the nip and Campaign Cost about and was entirely made in tories ads were de signed in As a Mazur was not born Here but has lived in Winnipeg for 11 years i presume to go to Nova Scotia with a Jingle for an elec Tion it just Manitoba voters Arent into image poli they Are sophisticated and Issue if the tories haunt run on their such As rent controls and the attempt to turn Lyon into a soft the results might have been much itsnicbnbs6 uhf Tsok mthau8wl ii2o you me trick that maybe your poli aes so Bap after of from the 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