National Post, Wednesday, July 11, 2007

Dominion debate (III)

Re: Dominion Debate, letter, July 7.

     I read with regret this letter, urging Canadians stop calling      Canada a Dominion. Its author, J.J. McCullough, refers to it      as an "an-achronistic, colonial title that was purposely      phased out by the Canadian government in the 1950's."

     I have no doubt that it was deliberately phased out, like      countless other parts of our history. But he is wrong in      asserting that the phrase "Dominion of Canada" appears      nowhere in the Constitution Act of 1867. Pierre Trudeau      made it harder for citizens to learn the truth, by changing the      name of The British North America Act, 1867, to the present      shabby "Constitution Act, 1867." He could not however,      change the contents, which are part of our history.

     The British North America Act, 1867, is our birth certificate.      Even under its present mislabelled name, the former British      North America Act, 1867, declares that its purpose is to      carry out the desire of the provinces of Canada (Upper and      Lower Canada), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, to be      united "into One Dominion under the Crown of the United      Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland"

     Section 3 of that Act legally united those provinces into "One      Dominion under the name of Canada." This is our country.      That U.K. statute is our valid birth certificate.

     It is shameful that the Trudeau government falsified our birth      and our parentage. Brave men fought as Canadians under that      honourable title in two World Wars. Canada signed the      Treaty of Versailles on June 28, 1919, as the Dominion of      Canada. We signed the Statute of Westminster in 1931 as a      free Dominion. And that statute recognized expressly that the      word "colony" in U.K. legislation no longer included a      Dominion.

     It is time to know the truth.

Marguerite E. Ritchie, president,

Human Rights Institute of Canada, Ottawa