A Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) committee will present a brief containing recommendations for amendments to the proposed new Canadian constitution before a parliamentary hearing in Ottawa next week.
Irwin Cotler, CJC national president and a McGill University constitutional law professor, said the 50-page CJC brief “addresses itself to a clause by clause analysis of the charter of human rights. In the proposed constitution, In addition to dealing with human rights in general, the brief cites three specifically Jewish concerns.
The CJC committee wants suspected Nazi war criminals exempted from a clause which states “Anyone charged with an offense has the right not to be found guilty of any act or omission that of the time of the act or omission that at the time of the act or omission did not constitute on offence.”
The CJC also wants are propaganda to be exempted from the freedom of expression clause, and guarantees that affirmative action programs for disadvantaged groups do not result in reverse discrimination. Cotler and the chairman of the CJC committee studying the constitution, Maxwell Cohen, former McGill dean of law and Canadian chairman of the International Joint Commission, will make the presentation in Ottawa.
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