Change to charter without Native input

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The Meech Lake Accord is " a complete sham," said Kathleen Ruff, editor of the Canadian Human Rights Advocate addressing a crowd of more than 100 people at a weekend conference on the charter.

"Meech Lake was a whole bunch of premiers locked in a room deciding for Canada serious changes for the whole country. Nothing will be changed," she added.

"Where is the input from women, from disabled and from minority groups?" she asked.

Ruff was addressing participants of the Multi-cultural Canada: The Impact of the Charter of Rights an Freedoms conference Sept. 18 and 19 at the University of Calgary.

The conference's theme was multiculturalism in Canada and specifically section 27 of the charter which reads "this charter shall be interpreted in a manner consistent wit the preservation and enhancement of the multicultural heritage of Canada."

"You don't look at the little letters, the periods or the commas," said Ruff referring to the Charter. "You look at the spirit."

Ruff referred to the present as "the best of times and the worst of times. Ours is perhaps the only charter in the would that speaks about physical and mental disabilities," said Ruff, speaking of the positive aspects of the Charter. However, she quickly noted some negative examples.

"Cleaners for Canada Post saw their wages slashed, these are women, and their wages have been pushed to below poverty level."

But Ruff considered recent rulings by the Supreme Court to be heading in a positive direction and a reflection of the spirit of the charter.

"The Supreme Court of Canada has said 'let's put an end to the kind of games that undermine human rights,'" said Ruff.

The conference featured six workshops dealing with aspects of education, discrimination in housing, jobs, and services, health and welfare issues, minorities and the media and minorities and the criminal justice system.

Other speakers at the conference included Marc Arnal, regional director of the Secretary of State and Gordon Fairweather, chief commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Fairweather talked of the history of Canada's charter including Canada's role in ratifying article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

The article ensures minorities the right to enjoy their own culture, religion and language in their own communities.

"Canada has already been found in violation of this article with respect to the denial of status to Indian women," said Fairweather. "This led Parliament to repeal the offending section of the Indian Act."

The conference which was sponsored by the department for the Secretary of State began at 6 p.m. Sept. 18 and concluded with an address from Wilson Head, president of the Urban Alliance on Race relations.