Minority Rights In Canada

Canadian Law
Position Paper “Minority Rights”

Law - Position Paper CLN4U1-01
Ali Essop
In Canada it is imperative that we protect the rights of minorities, but only to an extent. Canada is country with a strong policy to accepting immigrants, standing up for statutory minorities (even non-statutory minorities), and supporting equality. However; we can only go so far to protect minorities and their rights before they infringe on the rights of the majority. The controversial language barrier (French/English divide), Racial and religious discrimination such like the aboriginal conflict
Americans way of life began to change as “Homeland Security” was introduced. Being their neighbour the Canadian government decided to ramp up security and put counter terrorism and security bills in place. One of these is the “Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act” that was put in place after September 11th 2001. The legislation protects the safety, security, and fundamental rights of Canadians. (June 20, 2008 Justice.gc.ca). This was to counter terrorism however Muslims feel discriminated against. Even though this is a United States survey, this article relates to Canada almost as much as it does for them. According to the Washington Post; a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center of the People and the Press shows the Majority of Muslims say that after the September 11th terrorist attacks, it is much harder to be Muslim in America. Many say they’ve been singled out by airport security officers and people had acted suspicious of them. (Carol Morello, Aug 30th, 2011 Washington Post). The effects on the majority are that there are now longer wait lines in the airport and more degrading and thorough searches. Along with that, people feel like they’re living now in a prison of these infringing bills. For instance the Canadian Anti-Terrorism Act gave police sweeping new powers including the ability to
For the majority of Canadians, most of them speak English, including big businesses. Business like Costco, Bestbuy and Walmart would have to have their names or slogans changed to French. According to section 63 of Quebec’s French Language Charter, requires businesses to have generic French names. (Sidhartha Banerjee, Nov 18 2012, CTVNews.ca). Un-noticed also regarding signs are traffic signs, although most of them are written in both English and French, many of them are only in French, which can have serious implications for travelers from across the country. For the businesses, names and sales could be tarnished simple because many Canadians won`t understand what they say, and as for road signs the implications could be fatal ass it can cause traffic jams, collisions and inevitably lead to people losing their way on the road. In any case, sales for big businesses would go down including the Quebec tourism industry and fatal roadway issues. This creates a huge amount of animosity between both sides and anger for