Civil Rights in Canada Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Civil Rights in Canada - Research Paper Example Ensuring civil rights for all, therefore, has acquired a more complex and vivid character, which presents new challenges to the Canadian lawmakers. From time to time issues are raised by minority communities, which have a tendency to stick together due to their religious backgrounds and countries of origin. This presents new challenges to the government of Canada which it tries to address and settle as amicably as possible as and when they crop up. The ethnic diversity of Canada is stupendous as it is represented by almost all nationalities of the world with about 50% of the population being of non-Canadian origin (www12.statcan.ca). Canada was created through a statute of the British parliament in 1867 known as ‘The Constitution Act, 1867’ and it defined the division of powers between the federal and the provincial governments (polisci.nelson.com). It was almost a century later that amendments were made entirely by the Canadian government through ‘The Constitution Act’ of 1982 when there was no role played by the British Parliament. This Act also included a ‘Charter of Rights and Freedom’ meant for all original and naturalized Canadian citizens. This Charter laid the foundations for civil rights protection in Canada. It included important aspects such as a guarantee of rights and freedom, fundamental freedoms, democratic rights, mobility rights, legal rights and equal rights and defined the official languages of Canada, at the same time providing minority language educational rights (laws.justice.gc.ca). The rights to which Canadian citizens were entitled were initiated in a limited manner in the province of Saskatchewan in 1947 (polisci.nelson.com).