Whereas before the adoption of the Charter Canadian legislatures were supreme, having power without limit within their jurisdictions, they now have debatable supremacy within altered jurisdictions. Moreover, although no powers or rights have been explicitly 'reserved" to the people, supporters of the charter nevertheless appear to give Canadians hope that the possibility may exist.

             COMPARISON OF BILL OF RIGHTS AND THE CANADIAN CHARTER.

             Whether the American record has great significance for Canada poses a question which reasonable people may disagree. The entrenchment of rights in the Canadian Constitution comes after long experience with a system of parliamentary supremacy. The American judicial tradition of treating the written constitution as fundamental law cannot have an instant Canadian counterpart. Thus, it does not follow that the Canadian courts will necessarily claim a role comparable to that of courts in the United States, nor is it clear that the representative bodies in Canada would tolerate such a judicial assertion of power. Opposition by government bodies to the Charter have already occurred in Canada, where the Parti Quebecois government of Quebec invoked the "notwithstanding the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms" clause for the purpose of protecting their language laws from attack under the charter. This report will attempt to note some of the common and distinctive features of the text of the two constitutions as well as to how they differ.

             Three major classes of rights are protected by both the Canadian and United States constitutions. Freedom of expression, religion, and assembly are safeguarded in part I section 2 of the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982, and in the First Amendment of the American Constitution. The Legal Rights listed in sections 7-14 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, protecting criminal suspects and defendants by various procedural safeguards, are paralleled by American rights to have counsel against double jeopardy, excessive bail, etc.