R.I.P. Antonio Lamer

Civitatensis:

Former Chief Justice of Canada’s Supreme Court Antonio Lamer has died. No one understood the power that judges were receiving in 1982 better than Lamer, who referred to it as “a revolution.” Lamer sometimes bragged about his newly found ability to change the country though his power on the bench.

As perhaps the most important activist judge in the Charter era, Lamer was instrumental in saving Canadians from the darkly totalitarian world* they inhabited prior to the Charter:

“Thank God for the Charter! [People] just don’t realize what it would be like if we didn’t have those rights.”

Thank God for the Charter. To be inscribed on Justice Lamer’s tombstone.

* Oh yeah, “darkly totalitarian” means dudes couldn’t marry each other (!). Thank God for the Charter!