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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, May 11, 2007 - 05:34 pm: | 
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TheStar.com
He says nay to the Queen
May 11, 2007
Francine Kopun
Feature Writer
It's nothing personal, but Toronto civil rights lawyer Charles Roach does not, will not, cannot pledge allegiance to the Queen, and he's given up a lot to make his point.
A shot at being a judge. Travelling on a Canadian passport. Voting. Running for office. All denied to him because he will not utter the words he needs to say to become a Canadian citizen: "I ... do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada."
A native of Trinidad and Tobago, Roach was a British subject by birth who has had to settle for being a permanent resident of Canada. He was unable to persuade a federal court that the oath violates Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. He was denied leave to appeal that verdict to the Supreme Court. Now he's taken his case to Ontario Superior Court, where a judge has reserved a decision on whether to dismiss the case.
"People don't think about swearing oaths, but I started thinking about it. I realized that you just don't take an oath lightly. You have to believe in it," says Roach, 73, who came to Canada in 1955.
Roach has nothing against the Queen herself – he used to keep a picture of Elizabeth in his office to remind him that it was the institution and not the person he was fighting.
"There's been a struggle of people of African heritage for equality. A system of hereditary privilege is not consistent with ideas of equality," says Roach, who says he once turned down an invitation from Ontario's attorney general to apply for a judicial appointment because it would have meant swearing an oath.
Being able to opt out is a matter of freedom of conscience, a right guaranteed under the Charter, he argues. He has gathered 17 others who oppose the idea of pledging allegiance to the Queen, and hopes to certify his case as a class action.
"He takes cases that to most people seem impossible," says Bromley Armstrong, a Toronto civil rights activist who has known Roach since he was one of the only black lawyers in the city. "He would take them on to challenge the system."
In the 1960s, Roach worked for the City of Toronto, and later Metro Toronto. At one point, he adjudicated complaints from people and businesses whose properties were being expropriated for a new subway line. His job was to persuade them to accept the city's offer, or something as close to it as possible.
He didn't like it. In the 1950s, Alabama seamstress Rosa Parks launched the U.S. civil rights movement by refusing to give up her seat on a city bus to a white passenger. That caught Roach's attention.
"I thought it was quite amazing that a person who was such a powerless person could spark such a vast change," says Roach.
He opened up his own law practice. He represented Black Panthers trying to come to Canada to escape prosecution in the U.S. He represented asylum-seekers and people fighting extradition. He fought on behalf of domestics in Canada who were being deported in large numbers in the 1970s. He was a vocal critic of the courts and police, both of which he has called biased against blacks.
He worked within his own community, helping to launch the Caribana festival in 1967. In 1978 he established the Movement of Minority Electors to encourage more people of colour to run for office. He was a founding member of the Black Action Defence Committee, protesting systemic racism.
He describes himself as a musician, painter and poet, including rap. He used to lead a band called the Tropic Knights (he didn't like the name, too royal), and founded the Charlie Roach Band. He has used music, he says, to help draw people to picket lines, marches and demonstrations for civil rights.
"He takes a lively interest in everybody he meets. He's someone with a wide interest in the world, beyond law," says long-time colleague Phil Taylor, an investigator in Roach's office.
Taylor describes the lawyer as serene and friendly even in the face of hostility. "He's a great advocate because he's fearless."
Activism seems to run in the Roach family. Roach's father was a trade union organizer. One of his three daughters has become a lawyer defending prisoners' rights.
The Citizenship Act says all new Canadians 14 or older must take the oath, a regulation that could only by changed by Parliament, says a government spokesperson, who adds that swearing an oath of citizenship is common in many countries.
Roach would be happy to take one in Canada. But not as long as it means pledging allegiance to a distant queen.
http://www.thestar.com/News/article/212829 |
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