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Even though the sanctions envisaged by the Charter do not
apply to all, but only to the state and its agents, all who
violate provisions of the Charter will merit divine
sanction.
This then brings me to the question of what are these
moral and spiritual values within the parameters of a
religious culture acceptable to the majority of the people
of Canada.
We [Catholic] Christians see these as divine natural
laws, for example, the encyclicals, and the divine positive
laws, the commandments. It must be understood, however, that
as with all other religions in Canada, to explain, these are
the laws that embody what is acceptable to the majority.
Among the commandments, Matthew relates that if the first
commandment is to love God; the second, which he considers
as important as the first is, and I quote "You shall love
your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend
all of the law and the prophets."
As for the encyclicals, to me, the one which seems the
most impressive of all, especially for those who exercise
some sort of authority, came to us in 1963 from that great
man of Bergamo, John XXIII, entitled Pacem in Terris, On
Establishing Universal Peace in Truth, Justice, Charity and
Liberty.
If you haven't read it (and as for myself, I admit I only
read it last year) I suggest you do so.
Much of it seems to have been inspired, and of course, I
say this in jest, from Diefenbaker and his law of 1960.
One day in 1990, during at cocktail party held in
Montreal on the occasion of my nomination as Chief Justice
of Canada by Mr. Mulroney, I said to Pierre Elliott Trudeau,
who was talking to me of John Diefenbaker, "At the very
least you have accomplished something together in harmony:
by his law Diefenbaker has inspired John XXIII, and you by
your Charter you have entrenched God!" The encyclical reads:
Man has the right to live. He has the right to bodily
integrity and to the means necessary for the proper
development of life, particularly food, clothing, shelter,
medical care, rest, and, finally, the necessary social
services. In consequence, he has the right to be looked
after in the event of ill health; disability stemming from
his work; widowhood; old age; enforced unemployment; or
whenever through no fault of his own he is deprived of the
means of livelihood.
Further, John XXIII tells us:
In the economic sphere, it is evident that a man has the
inherent right not only to be given the opportunity to work,
but also to be allowed the exercise of personal initiative
in the work he does.
The conditions in which a man works form a necessary
corollary to these rights. They must not be such as to
weaken his physical or moral fibre, or militate against the
proper development of adolescents to manhood. Women must be
accorded such conditions of work as are consistent with
their needs and responsibilities as wives and mothers.
In consequence:
the worker is likewise entitled to a wage that is
determined in accordance with the precepts of justice. This
needs stressing. The amount a worker receives must be
sufficient, in proportion to available funds, to allow him
and his family a standard of living consistent with human
dignity.
Translated by Juliette Champagne, PhD
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