Supreme power: on a personal level, sovereignty involves balancing rights and responsibilities; on a national level, it's much the same thing. (Defined).

Sovereignty comes in several flavours and sizes. On its own, sovereignty means supreme power. Then, philosophers and political scientists come along and complicated the whole thing. In answer to the question "Who has sovereignty?" academics and deep thinkers might say, "Everybody and nobody." Then, with a satisfied grin on their faces, they might toddle off in search of simpler puzzles such as "What is the meaning of life?" Meanwhile, the questioner is left confused and none the wiser.

Let's try to fit some of the pieces of the puzzle together.

To some people, all supreme power belongs to each individual. At its extreme, this idea sends people off into the bush where they build little communities, sometimes fortified, and defy anybody to mess with their rights. Such is the philosophy of the Montana Freemen and people like them. They reject the authority of any government except their own. About 20 Freemen set up what they called Justus Township on a Montana ranch in the mid-1990s.

At the other extreme, all sovereign power belongs to the state. In such circumstances the state is usually identified as a single person. We call this person a dictator and there are plenty of examples. Saddam Hussein controls every particle of power in Iraq, and will do until he is toppled from his perch. Kim Jong-Il has a similar iron grip on power in North Korea; he is the supreme sovereign.

Canadians live, most of us contentedly, in between these two poles. We recognize that if everyone is a Freeman, life might get a bit chaotic. But, we don't want to be dictated to by a tyrant either. So, we accept a system in which, to use the confusing explanation of those philosophers, no one has sovereignty and in which everyone has it. In other words, we try to find a balance between individual sovereignty and the need for limits on that sovereignty so that society can function in an atmosphere of something approaching equality.

Through elections, we send representatives to Parliament to work on our behalf. These Members of Parliament, including the Prime Minister, are not our bosses, they are our employees--at least, in theory. (Sometimes, our elected representatives behave as though they are all powerful; this is the subject of the article on page 8).

So, we give Parliament the power, or sovereignty, to make laws on our behalf. But, Parliament does not have supreme power, because if we don't like what its members do we can throw the rascals out at the next election. There are plenty of examples of this happening.

The New Democratic Party (NDP) government in British Columbia had become deeply unpopular by the turn of the century. British Columbians had lost their faith in the government because of political scandals and mismanagement. In a May 2001 election the NDP was able to win just two seats. The same thing happened federally in 1993. The Progressive Conservative government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney had become the most unpopular in Canadian history. Again, the people no longer trusted the government. The Conservatives were punished in the election of October 1993, losing all but two of the seats they held.

These are modern examples of old ideas being put into practice.

The notion that the people are sovereign comes from concepts expressed by John Locke (1632-1704). He argued that the people have the right to change their government whenever it starts to behave in a tyrannical way. Mr. Locke lived in England at a time when Parliament (the peoples' representative) was engaged in a struggle to take power away from the monarchy. Until then, the kings and queens of England had control of most of the power in the country.

In 1690, when John Locke published his Two Treatises of Government, it was widely believed that monarchs received the right to rule from God. This concept was called the "Divine Right of Kings," and Locke said it was claptrap. It was the people, wrote John Locke, who granted the right to govern. The way he saw it, it was the duty of government to obey the will of the majority and to protect the rights of the people. It took a long time for the realization of these ideas to come about, and the sovereignty of the people has yet to be asserted in many places.

Interestingly, wherever the sovereignty of the people has become paramount it has done so within the boundaries of a nation. And, this throws a further twist into confusion over where sovereignty resides.

The American Revolution (1775-1783) and The French Revolution (1789-1799) triggered enormous changes; most notably in the rights of individuals to govern themselves within a nation state. The French Constitution said that: "Sovereignty ... belongs to the Nation; no group can attribute sovereignty to itself nor can an individual arrogate (claim) it to himself." The idea of popular sovereignty exercised primarily by the people became combined with the idea of national sovereignty. So, each nation has sovereignty over what goes on within its borders as expressed by the will of the people.

This is what The Harper Dictionary of Modern Thought has to say about that: "The sovereignty of a state is that area of conduct in which according to international law it is autonomous and not subject to legal control by other states or to obligations of international law."

But, the concept of the sovereign power of each nation to do whatever it wants within its own borders is wearing thin. When, the government of the former Yugoslavia began to crack down on rebels in the province of Kosovo in 1998 the international community intervened. War-planes from states belonging to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), among them Canada, began to bombard Yugoslavia. Eventually, 50,000 NATO soldiers occupied Kosovo. The United Nations Security Council set up a temporary administration for the province.

However, Kosovo is legally recognized as still being a part of Yugoslavia. So, if the rule of national sovereignty that has been observed for many decades applied, the government of Yugoslavia should have had a free hand in dealing with an issue of dissent within its boundaries.

Similarly, the sovereignty of Afghanistan has been ignored, and with the blessing of the international community. A U.S.-led invasion of the country took place in 2001 after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. It was alleged that the government of Afghanistan had given support to the terrorists who carried out the attacks on the United States.

In less dramatic fashion, the sovereignty of other nations faces erosion. According to Mel Hurtig, one of the nations facing threats to its sovereignty is Canada. In his 2002 book, The Vanishing Country, Mr. Hurtig writes about "selfish, grasping, and greedy [people] abandoning the work of generations of Canadians, and the dreams of the vast majority of the people who live in this country, for American standards and values and priorities."

Strong stuff, but Mr. Hurtig's views are supported by some people in high places. John Godfrey is a Liberal Member of Parliament and author of the 1999 book The Canada We Want. In a Globe and Mail article in April 2002 Mr. Godfrey challenged the notion that Canada should forge stronger links with the United States in order to improve its standard of living. He makes the case that the pursuit of higher and higher living standards undermines our national sovereignty.

"Sweden," writes John Godfrey, quoting a 2001 Conference Board of Canada report, "ranks 17th among (rich industrial) countries, but was the top performer in the categories of innovation and environment. Japan ranks 13th in standard of living, but had the best record on health. While the United States was a leader in standard of living, it had the highest rate of poverty, one of the lowest rates of life expectancy, and the highest crime rate. Thus, it appears that a single-minded obsession with standard of living may actually undermine quality of life."

What both Mr. Godfrey and Mr. Hurtig argue is that Canadians have always made choices that are different from those of Americans. Canadians value social programs as expressions of national sovereignty. Here's John Godfrey again:

"Those who argue for lower taxes to bring us closer to the United States, for example, are quite prepared to diminish social programs, such as public health care, as a consequence. Those who argue against the Kyoto Protocol do so with no sense of tomorrow."

SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES:

1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was one of the most important thinkers of his or any other time. In his famous political work, The Social Contract (1762), he says that people, participating equally, are the supreme authority, and are not under any obligation to obey a government that goes beyond the powers granted it by the people.

Have students decide which of the following options would be the most effective in getting a government they believe has stepped beyond its powers to return to expressing the will of the majority: (a) letter-writing campaigns, (b) petitions, (c) peaceful street demonstrations, (d) running for elected office, (e) boycotting elections, (f) violent revolution. Can there ever be situations in which violent revolution is justified?

2. Some people are suggesting Canada's health-care system should be taken out of the hands of politicians. In his November 2002 report, Roy Romanow recommended setting up a "health council" to watch over Medicare. Have students design such a council made up entirely of citizens and outside the control of politicians.

FACT FILE

The republic of Ancient Rome was based on the imperium populi, the sovereignty of the people, which they delegated to the rulers.

Websites

The American Freemen--www.iahushua.com/T-L-J/freemen.html

Romanow Health Care Commission--http://www2.healthcarecommission.ca /default.asp?DN=cn=2,ou=Stories,ou=Suite247,o=HCC 

World Federalist Association--http://users.lmi.net/wfanca/pp_sov_def.html

RELATED ARTICLE: Health care--a sovereignty issue?

Roy Romanow used to be Premier of Saskatchewan. In 2001, he was given the job of leading a Royal Commission on Canada's health-care system. Mr. Romanow spent almost 18 months travelling across Canada talking to citizens about what they wanted in their healthcare system.

His November 2002 report described Medicare as Canada's most cherished social program; it is a symbol of our sovereignty. By choosing a publicly funded system Canadians are saying they prefer health care that covers everyone and places need above ability to pay. Mr. Romanow flatly rejected allowing private enterprise to offer those with money the opportunity to jump the queue for medically necessary health care. To do so, he said, would be a "perversion of Canadian values."

A public opinion poll taken a week later found a clear majority of Canadians believed Mr. Romanow's report offers the right medicine to cure the ailing Medicare system. However, a large number of respondents said they didn't think Canada's politicians would put many of Mr. Romanow's recommendations into law.

RELATED ARTICLE: Paper power.

The Constitution of the United States is the fundamental law of the federal union. The Constitution does not give the national legislature (Congress) supreme power but imposes important restrictions upon it. A further complication was added when the Supreme Court of the United States successfully asserted its right to declare laws unconstitutional. But, this hasn't given the Supreme Court sovereign power. The U.S. Constitution can only be changed by the people, although proposals for change are put forward by Congress, individual states, or special conventions called for the purpose.

But, somebody seems to have forgotten to tell the American people that they rule. During the summer of 2001 a public opinion poll quizzed Americans on whether or not the government does their bidding. Asked how much influence public opinion has on the actions of official Washington, 49% responded "not too much," or "not at all."

RELATED ARTICLE: Many sovereignties.

Just when you think you're beginning to get a handle on the illusive location of sovereignty along comes Harold Laski (1893-1950). A British political scientist, Mr. Laski along with others such as Leon Duguit and Hugo Krabbe, proposed the theory of pluralistic sovereignty. They said that supreme power is exercised by the various political, economic, social, and religious groups that dominate the government of each state. According to this doctrine, sovereignty in each society does not reside in any particular place but shifts constantly from one group (or alliance of groups) to another.