fifty employees be run in French; a third outlaws commercial
signage in any language other than French. In other words,
restrictions have been placed on Quebeckers by their government,
in the name of their collective goal of survival, which
in other Canadian communities might easily be disallowed
by virtue of the Charter.29 The fundamental question was: Is
this variation acceptable or not?
The issue was finally raised by a proposed constitutional
amendment, named after the site of the conference where it
was first drafted, Meech Lake. The Meech amendment proposed
to recognize Quebec as a “distinct society,” and
wanted to make this recognition one of the bases for judicial
interpretation of the rest of the constitution, including the
Charter. This seemed to open up the possibility for variation
in its interpretation in different parts of the country. For
many, such variation was fundamentally unacceptable. Examining
why brings us to the heart of the question of how
rights-liberalism is related to diversity.
The Canadian Charter follows the trend of the last half of
the twentieth century, and gives a basis for judicial review
on two basic scores. First, it defines a set of individual rights
that are very similar to those protected in other charters and
bills of rights in Western democracies, for example, in the
United States and Europe. Second, it guarantees equal treat-