Canada in the Mirror: the Charter at 44 and the Politics of the Sign Keeper
On March 25, 2026, 123 nations voted at the United Nations to declare the transatlantic slave trade the gravest crime against humanity. Canada abstained. Two days later, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms turns 44. On Nancy Perin, historian Bryan Palmer’s thesis about Canada’s structural colonial capitalism meets the documented record of Prime Minister Carney’s Davos speech and his government’s actual conduct. The sign, it turns out, was never removed from the window. A companion piece, The Battle-Tested State, follows with the full institutional evidence.
