Democratic Values, Their Roots and Why People Take Action

Is it fair?

Imagine your class holds an election for student council. The principal announces the winner without counting the ballots. Then the winner makes a rule that only their friends can use the gym. You would be upset, and you would be right.

Your reaction shows you already hold some democratic values: the people should choose, everyone should be treated equally, and even leaders must follow the rules. Canada's system of government is built on these same ideas. This lesson names them, shows where they came from, and looks at how people act on them.

Four fundamental beliefs and values

1. Democracy. Demos is Greek for "the people" and kratos means "power". In a direct democracy, citizens vote on decisions themselves. Canada is a representative democracy: we elect people (MPs, MPPs, councillors) to make decisions for us, and we can replace them at the next election.

2. Human rights. Every person has equal dignity and worth. Human rights include equality, the right to life and security, and protection from discrimination. They belong to everyone, not only citizens.

3. Freedom. Canadians have freedoms of conscience and religion, of thought and expression (including the press), of peaceful assembly and of association. Freedoms are not unlimited. For example, freedom of expression does not protect threats.

4. The rule of law. Laws must be public, apply equally to everyone (including the Prime Minister and the police), and be applied by independent courts. No one is above the law.

Other values that support these four include equality, respect for diversity, the common good and peaceful ways of settling disagreement. Canada's Constitution also gives Parliament power to make laws for the "peace, order, and good government" of Canada.

Where did these ideas come from?

These values grew over centuries, from many places:

• Athens (about 2 500 years ago): citizens voted directly on laws in an assembly. But only adult male citizens counted. Women, enslaved people and foreigners were shut out. Democracy started small.
• The Haudenosaunee Confederacy: long before Europeans arrived, the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca nations (later joined by the Tuscarora) united under the Great Law of Peace, with councils that decide by consensus and clan mothers who choose and can remove chiefs. This is a living system of governance, still practised today.
• Magna Carta (1215): English barons forced King John to accept that the king, too, was bound by law. Its promise that no free man could be imprisoned except by the lawful judgment of his peers or the law of the land is a root of the rule of law and fair trials.
• English Bill of Rights (1689): limited the monarch's power and strengthened Parliament.
• Responsible government (1848): Nova Scotia and then the Province of Canada won the rule that the cabinet must keep the support of the elected assembly. Power moved from appointed governors toward elected representatives.
• Confederation (1867): created Canada as a federation with an elected House of Commons.
• Expanding the vote: at Confederation, voting was limited mostly to men who owned property. Most women won the federal vote in 1918 (Manitoba was the first province to give women the vote, in 1916). Chinese and South Asian Canadians won the federal vote in 1947, Japanese Canadians in 1948, Inuit in 1950, and Status First Nations people in 1960 without having to give up their status.
• The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (1982): wrote rights and freedoms into the Constitution. You will study it in Lesson 10.

Values become actions

Values are not just ideas. You can see them in what citizens do. Civic action can be quiet (reading the news, voting) or loud (a march), local (a park clean-up) or global (a campaign about human rights).

Why do people take civic action?

People have many reasons:

• To fight an injustice they or others face.
• To protect something they value, such as water, a language or a neighbourhood.
• To hold power accountable when they think a government is wrong.
• Because of personal experience, culture, faith or a sense of duty to others.
• Because democracy needs it. If citizens stop taking part, decisions are made by fewer and fewer people.

Historical examples. Suffragists such as Nellie McClung campaigned for years for women's right to vote. In 1946, Viola Desmond, a Black businesswoman, refused to leave the whites-only section of a movie theatre in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia; she was arrested and fined, and she fought the charge in court. In 1929, five Alberta women known as the Famous Five won the Persons Case, which decided that women were "persons" who could be appointed to the Senate.

Current examples. Idle No More began in 2012 when four women in Saskatchewan organized teach-ins about Indigenous rights, land and water; it grew into a national movement. Autumn Peltier, from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory on Manitoulin Island, has spoken around the world, including at the United Nations, for clean drinking water for First Nations. Young people across Canada have joined climate strikes and run for student trustee positions on school boards.