[JaredMilne]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

You wouldn't remember because your parents were in short pants but before the final, current charter there was John Diefenbaker's flawed but pioneering Canadian Bill of Rights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Bill_of_Rights

The Liberals ultimately pulled it off but they sure didn't invent the idea.

You are, of course, quite right:

$1:

On the other hand, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms has important Conservative and NDP influences as well, given the inclusion of such things as the notwithstanding clause and the increased recognition of resource taxation rights for the provinces, at the insistence of the Conservative and NDP provincial premiers who eventually agreed to Pierre Trudeau’s constitutional patriation. Nor are Canadian Liberals the only ones to embark on nation- or province-building projects when they are in office, as Canadian Conservatives have been quite happy to do the same thing when they themselves are in power. Similarly, it was John Diefenbaker who created the National Council on Welfare, and created the original Canadian Bill of Rights, accomplishments that most people today would associate with the Liberals or the NDP. In short, many of the ideas and evolutions experienced by Canadian society have cut across regional and party lines, and do not exclusively belong to any party or part of the country.

Diefenbaker's larger initiatives may have failed for the most part, but he was a pioneer in some ways, and when he did good things, such as his skillful handling of many different bread-and-butter issues, particularly those of interest to Western Canada, he did a very good job indeed.

[Jabberwalker]

He was a complex man, I'd say.

[JaredMilne]

Jabberwalker Jabberwalker:

He was a complex man, I'd say.

Peter C. Newman called him a "renegade in power", and Will Ferguson considered him a pretentious blowhard, but I personally like him a lot. Dief the Chief's larger goals may have failed, but his failures, such as they were, did not cause any real long-term grief for Canada, and when he did things right, he did them very right indeed.