I didn't want this thing to be too long before I sent it out, but I feel bad that I didn't point to this public-opinion research from the Environics Institute. The post points out some surprising results, and then suggests reasonable explanations, but if it makes no other point than "Opinions on this stuff are not monolithic or eternal," that would be a great addition to the conversation. https://cdnsurveystuff.substack.com/p/what-if-section-33-becomes-an-issue
Thanks - both for your take on the debate (I lived through the 1980-2013 phase too!) and the reference to the write-up on public opinion. As I say in the first article, the questions aren't perfect - they were first written decades ago and aren't tailored to fit the current issue (Bill 21, preemptive use, etc.). But that's also what makes them especially useful - it's always tempting for pollsters to chase the issue of the day, but regular and consistent tracking (which can feel pedestrian at times) is way more revealing in the end. Which raises the thought: I guess it's time to re-ask these questions again!
The Alberta position in this is substantially correct. No section 33, no Charter. It simply would have never been ratified by the provinces.
The notwithstanding clause is not an accident, it was a purposeful mechanism which ensures our elected leaders have the final say on legislation - NOT the judiciary.
Asking the courts to rule on whether this mechanism should be limited BY THE COURTS is ridiculous.
If the Liberals actually want to amend the charter, there is a clear mechanism for that too.
Simply gain express agreement from enough provinces, and Bob is your uncle.
This is the weakness of our federation. The fact is that it would be easier for a province to win independence by force of arms than it would be to the amend the charter. That means that you are stuck with the potential for misrule by activist judges or populist legislators. It’s the kind of thing that makes me wonder if we should even be a country.
Spot on! When the Court found an implicit right to secession on the basis of a majority vote in a single provincial jurisdiction, it changed the rules of the game. Remember that the the US fought a civil war on that issue, and did NOT refer it to the Supreme Court for pronouncement. But of course, the Canadian dilemma was in the context of Quebec, where secession was not only a realistic possibility, but there had been so many carve outs and concessions and special deals, that the SCC could hardly rule otherwise. All of which has been further complicated by according forms of sovereignty to aboriginal entities and something amorphous called the "Metis" nation.
Changing the Charter is a job for Parliament and the Provinces. Supreme Court has no authority to by-pass our rules on changing the Charter just because they think it will never be changed without their help. Most of the Provinces don't want changes.
Just when you think the Liberals can't go lower, they manage to find a way. If AB goes to separate, I will move there that is how little I feel for the Canada of the future.
The entire history of British liberty, from the Magna Carta to today, happened without a Supreme Court.
Britain literally invented political liberty (or "rights", in the parlance you probably prefer). For 800 years it has been the world vanguard. All without a Constitutional Court.
The idea that only a Constitutional Court can protect us from tyranny is historically uninformed.
Judicial Review is an AMERICAN idea. They invented it, we imported it in 1982.
I'm not prone to simplistic statements, but I'll stand 100% behind this one: Those who oppose the NWC are making a fundamentally American argument.
This can’t be said enough. The anti-American Canadian liberal left has been committed to a fundamentally American constitutional politics since ‘82. Ironic!
To see an example of a Supreme Court unfettered by existence of a NWC protecting the rights of its citizens and minorities from the government just watch CNN or Fox News.
Exactly, which is why this debate is so dumb. The Charter was already completely nullified by "such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society", as we saw with crystalline clarity during the covid years.
> We express no opinion on the substance of this law, but we’re going to need you to say what you think about it
This is exactly right, and the big issue with what the government has done. They aren't willing to go far enough into 'provincial rights' to defend minorities, but enough to piss people off anyways. Have to wonder what the point is because of that.
Nobody is seriously expecting or calling on the Supreme Court to negate or invalidate s. 33. As many people have pointed out, its inclusion was the condition upon which some provinces acceded to a Charter of Rights that they anticipated (correctly) would restrict the scope of legislatures’ previously untrammeled power.
The issue is not with the validity of s. 33, but with what it stands for and how it should be used. Section 33 is not the means by which an elected legislature counter-balances an appointed judge’s Charter ruling — that’s section 1 of the Charter, which makes the Charter’s guarantees subject to “such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” That “balancing” section is an entrenched part of most judicial considerations of Charter challenges, directing a court to consider whether, even if a law violates the Charter, the violation could still stand if there’s a good enough justification. Plenty of Charter-violating laws have been saved through s. 1 intervention. This is how the judicial and legislative branches of government properly push and pull against each other in a constitutional democracy.
“Nuclear” might be too strong a word to use when describing s. 33; but there should be no doubt that its invocation was intended to be rare and reserved only for the most serious situations. Quebec has invoked it most often, usually (prior to Bill 21) to override declarations that French-only language laws were unconstitutional. That’s a core issue for Quebec and although I don’t love it, it’s an appropriate use of s. 33.
From 1982 to 2018, s. 33 was invoked six times. It’s now been invoked six times since, including once pre-emptively by Ontario in back-to-work legislation in 2022. Section 33 was never meant to be a routine “get-out-of-the-Charter” card, but that’s exactly how some legislatures are treating it. I agree that the AG’s intervention in the Bill 21 case is utterly anodyne, but he’s entirely correct when he says that slapping a s. 33 notice onto every law that might violate a Charter right effectively extinguishes those rights.
The Supreme Court has options here, and it should (and likely will) look closely at the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal’s recent ruling in the Bill 137 case regarding parental consent around pronoun use in schools. The Sask. CA ruled that “notwithstanding the notwithstanding clause,” so to speak, courts still have jurisdiction to declare that a law violates Charter rights. All that s. 33 does is prevent judges from striking the law down or rendering it of no force and effect on those grounds. In other words, legislatures can shield laws from invalidation, but they can’t shield them from judicial scrutiny or from declaratory findings of unconstitutionality. That seems to me the very least that a court can do, and it’s what I hope the SCC says about Bill 21.
Canada passed a Bill of Rights in 1960, but the courts treated it like any other law and when it came into conflict with other laws, invariably the other laws won. Entrenching the Charter in the newly patriated Constitution was done specifically and explicitly to ensure that this Charter’s provisions took precedence over the contents of any other laws — they’re called “fundamental rights” for a reason. Section 1 was the escape hatch for that declaration, and s. 33 was an additional emergency exit inserted for political purposes. That’s what the Supreme Court needs to be reminded of when considering Bill 21 and its noxious provisions, and I hope they’ll remind the rest of the country as well in due course.
This seems the most likely route the SCC will take and it has the virtue of avoiding a rewrite of the Constitution, although it will modify previous SCC precedent (see the Ford case). Hard to believe judges will decide they do not have the jurisdiction/power to do something. Successful use of the notwithstanding clause relies upon withstanding public opinion. Whether a court determines that a law infringes on a fundamental right will impact public opinion. That’s why provinces want pre-emptive use of s. 33 to effectively silence any possible word from the courts. It seems altogether unclear that such pre-emptive use of the nothwithstanding clause was what was contemplated in the negotiation of the Charter and Constitution by the feds and provinces sans Québec in 1982.
At the same time, I think we all understand that while the political context to this case is national in scope, the feds are thinking more particularly about next year’s Québec election with current polls putting the Parti Québécois firmly in majority territory. While of course we might hope that the AG of Canada would be more concerned with the status of fundamental rights over the short-termism of an upcoming provincial election, perhaps there is someone at a desk in Ottawa somewhere thinking about the impact a PQ election would have on national unity given the PQ’s commitment to hold a referendum by 2030 if they form the next government. I suppose we could also throw in minority government calculations and where the Bloc Québécois fits in.
Finally, it cannot be surprising to see Conservatives come out in favour of the use of the notwithstanding clause considering Pierre Poilievre’s election pledge earlier this year to use s. 33 to shield his intended amendments to the Criminal Code that would ensure those convicted of multiple murders never get out of prison or Danielle Smith’s potential use of it to shield laws affecting transgender youth. What is surprising is that these political considerations could not get the current AG of Canada to get more worked up about the use of s. 33.
State employees are the state, which is why they don't have rights against the state. The purpose of rights is to protect us from them, not to protect their "rights" when acting as officials.
Many of our problems today stem from the idea of state employees as a bizarre hybrid of private citizens who deserve to be protected from the state and official who can tell everyone else what to do. "Rights", for state employees, only apply when they are off the clock.
I followed the constitutional bickering with great interest when Trudeau, the Elder put his political capital on the line to "bring the Constitution home". This was just one of many chess moves that the Liberals had made going back to the Pearson days to formally sever the country's ties to Great Britain. A new Canadian flag is another obvious example.
Reading the commentary across many Canadian platforms regarding this newest Liberal legal power play, including the nausea inducing column that appeared in the G&M, is the lack of context that produced a Notwithstanding clause in the first place.
Three Premiers from western Canada (Lyon, Blakeney and Lougheed) were wary of jurists deciding what the rights entailed. They foresaw a situation where the courts could make charter decisions that were obstructionist in nature, cancelling out legislators who had broader public obligations to consider. These Premiers believed in the Westminster principle of the supremacy of the legislature and demanded a Notwithstanding clause that gives the final say to the commoners, not unelected judges.
It's my view that we are at a point of reflection. Do Canadians believe in our Westminster traditions and the role of the commoners to make the laws for the good of the people? Or are we prepared to concede more and more power to the courts, rendering our legislators as good as useless? It certainly appears that the Liberals have no faith in their ability to govern and make difficult choices, but choose to hide behind their proxies on the federal courts.
Back in undergrad (a little over a decade ago) we had exchange students from France, and the one in several of my classes was of Arab ancestry and Muslim. I forget how we got on the topic, but she related to me that classroom discipline in France is strict and one is not allowed to eat or drink in the classroom. When Ramadan came around, she asked the professor of her evening class (in France) if she could discreetly break her fast with a snack during class; she was told no. So at sundown she would excuse herself to the restroom and break her fast in the ladies' room.
Whenever laicite comes up, I think of my friend eating snacks in a bathroom stall.
Coming from a country that has no charter of rights (the UK) it amused me to discover that Canada did, but that there was a clause that said governments could ignore them if they felt like it. I arrived in the same decade as the adoption of the charter but too late for its passage, so missed out on the, no doubt fulsome, negotiations. It seems an odd document, where government can ignore "fundamental" rights and the supreme court can add (sorry, read in) rights that they think the authors missed.
Sorry, I'm rambling. I liked the Act Ensuring Teachers Won’t Wear Headscarves. Much better than The Act Respecting the Laicity of the State
I too arrived from the UK but in 1977, aged 25, and was quite bemused by Canada’s obsession with constitutional matters. Still, it made for some good political theatre.
In college in London I studied British Constitution - remarkable for the absence of any such document!
I find the US habit of naming acts so that the acronym is a word amusing (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) - though I would prefer the acronyms to be sillier.
This is all fruit of the poisonous tree, Paul. If a legislature has the right to defy the constitution and deprive people of their rights, how much good is your constitution doing you?
Quebec’s law has the support of the electorate in Quebec which has a history of subjugation under the sectarian thumb of the Catholic Church and which has since thrown off those shackles in their public school system and now more broadly across government. It is interesting that no one here has made any argument in favour of secularism over sectarianism preferring instead to label Quebecers as intolerant racists. The success of the west and western forms of government has been until recently, predicated on secular principles vis a vis government administration: The state must appear neutral regarding religion to all citizens, particularly when public servants exercise authority over the public (e.g., judges, police, teachers). Wearing religious symbols could signal state endorsement of a particular faith or worldview, weakening democratic principles of fairness and inclusion. Public servants in authority must treat all citizens equally. Displaying religious identity may raise doubts about their impartiality, especially among members of minority or non-religious groups. The same standards often apply to restrictions on expressing political affiliations in workplaces. The wearing of conspicuous religious symbols might be perceived as an attempt to proselytize, influence, or coerce others, including vulnerable individuals in education or justice contexts. This could undermine the principle that the state should not sway its citizens’ beliefs or discriminate based on religion. The ban represents a modest sacrifice, since it restricts religious expression only during working hours and in specific functions of public authority, not in private life. Just as public servants are barred from showing partisan political symbols at work, exhibiting religious symbols may be understood as expressing views incompatible with expected professional discretion and the public’s expectation of a neutral service environment. Pluralism in society should be staunchly defended by a decidedly secular state.
The absence on the part of the federal government, of the courage to voice a clear opinion on the matter and instead pass the puck to the supremes, is worthy of the contempt that Mr. Wells so eloquently expressed in this piece.
I didn't want this thing to be too long before I sent it out, but I feel bad that I didn't point to this public-opinion research from the Environics Institute. The post points out some surprising results, and then suggests reasonable explanations, but if it makes no other point than "Opinions on this stuff are not monolithic or eternal," that would be a great addition to the conversation. https://cdnsurveystuff.substack.com/p/what-if-section-33-becomes-an-issue
Thanks - both for your take on the debate (I lived through the 1980-2013 phase too!) and the reference to the write-up on public opinion. As I say in the first article, the questions aren't perfect - they were first written decades ago and aren't tailored to fit the current issue (Bill 21, preemptive use, etc.). But that's also what makes them especially useful - it's always tempting for pollsters to chase the issue of the day, but regular and consistent tracking (which can feel pedestrian at times) is way more revealing in the end. Which raises the thought: I guess it's time to re-ask these questions again!
Thanks for sharing. Had missed that, and important part of the discussion and debate. Yes, framing matters.
The Alberta position in this is substantially correct. No section 33, no Charter. It simply would have never been ratified by the provinces.
The notwithstanding clause is not an accident, it was a purposeful mechanism which ensures our elected leaders have the final say on legislation - NOT the judiciary.
Asking the courts to rule on whether this mechanism should be limited BY THE COURTS is ridiculous.
If the Liberals actually want to amend the charter, there is a clear mechanism for that too.
Simply gain express agreement from enough provinces, and Bob is your uncle.
This is the weakness of our federation. The fact is that it would be easier for a province to win independence by force of arms than it would be to the amend the charter. That means that you are stuck with the potential for misrule by activist judges or populist legislators. It’s the kind of thing that makes me wonder if we should even be a country.
The fact that secession is much easier than amendment is, unquestionably, a bit of a problem.
Spot on! When the Court found an implicit right to secession on the basis of a majority vote in a single provincial jurisdiction, it changed the rules of the game. Remember that the the US fought a civil war on that issue, and did NOT refer it to the Supreme Court for pronouncement. But of course, the Canadian dilemma was in the context of Quebec, where secession was not only a realistic possibility, but there had been so many carve outs and concessions and special deals, that the SCC could hardly rule otherwise. All of which has been further complicated by according forms of sovereignty to aboriginal entities and something amorphous called the "Metis" nation.
Or not. Secession is "easy" in theory, but it's not easy in practice - either in terms of initiating it or fully executing it.
Changing the Charter is a job for Parliament and the Provinces. Supreme Court has no authority to by-pass our rules on changing the Charter just because they think it will never be changed without their help. Most of the Provinces don't want changes.
The Supremes (and their defenders) need to be reminded of this at every turn, because they don't believe it.
lol which is exactly why the feds have asked the court to decide. It’s a game of “chicken.”
Just when you think the Liberals can't go lower, they manage to find a way. If AB goes to separate, I will move there that is how little I feel for the Canada of the future.
I’m with Brother Coyne on this one. What is the point of a bill of rights if it can simply be negated with some pretend-magic words?
It just ends up being a list of nice-to-haves, the equivalent of an etiquette sign at the local hiking trail.
The entire history of British liberty, from the Magna Carta to today, happened without a Supreme Court.
Britain literally invented political liberty (or "rights", in the parlance you probably prefer). For 800 years it has been the world vanguard. All without a Constitutional Court.
The idea that only a Constitutional Court can protect us from tyranny is historically uninformed.
Judicial Review is an AMERICAN idea. They invented it, we imported it in 1982.
I'm not prone to simplistic statements, but I'll stand 100% behind this one: Those who oppose the NWC are making a fundamentally American argument.
This can’t be said enough. The anti-American Canadian liberal left has been committed to a fundamentally American constitutional politics since ‘82. Ironic!
There are many ironies in Canadian politics, and this may be the most fundamental one.
I don’t see how the nationality of the idea matters. And isn’t it the UK putting people in prison for tweets?
Free speech is over in the UK.
To see an example of a Supreme Court unfettered by existence of a NWC protecting the rights of its citizens and minorities from the government just watch CNN or Fox News.
Many people who advocated for a strong Supreme Court from the 1960s through the 2000s are now, uh, changing their tune.
What people?
Exactly, which is why this debate is so dumb. The Charter was already completely nullified by "such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society", as we saw with crystalline clarity during the covid years.
It invites abuse of minorities by the majority. And puts their will over rights that should be inviolable.
> We express no opinion on the substance of this law, but we’re going to need you to say what you think about it
This is exactly right, and the big issue with what the government has done. They aren't willing to go far enough into 'provincial rights' to defend minorities, but enough to piss people off anyways. Have to wonder what the point is because of that.
Nobody is seriously expecting or calling on the Supreme Court to negate or invalidate s. 33. As many people have pointed out, its inclusion was the condition upon which some provinces acceded to a Charter of Rights that they anticipated (correctly) would restrict the scope of legislatures’ previously untrammeled power.
The issue is not with the validity of s. 33, but with what it stands for and how it should be used. Section 33 is not the means by which an elected legislature counter-balances an appointed judge’s Charter ruling — that’s section 1 of the Charter, which makes the Charter’s guarantees subject to “such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” That “balancing” section is an entrenched part of most judicial considerations of Charter challenges, directing a court to consider whether, even if a law violates the Charter, the violation could still stand if there’s a good enough justification. Plenty of Charter-violating laws have been saved through s. 1 intervention. This is how the judicial and legislative branches of government properly push and pull against each other in a constitutional democracy.
“Nuclear” might be too strong a word to use when describing s. 33; but there should be no doubt that its invocation was intended to be rare and reserved only for the most serious situations. Quebec has invoked it most often, usually (prior to Bill 21) to override declarations that French-only language laws were unconstitutional. That’s a core issue for Quebec and although I don’t love it, it’s an appropriate use of s. 33.
From 1982 to 2018, s. 33 was invoked six times. It’s now been invoked six times since, including once pre-emptively by Ontario in back-to-work legislation in 2022. Section 33 was never meant to be a routine “get-out-of-the-Charter” card, but that’s exactly how some legislatures are treating it. I agree that the AG’s intervention in the Bill 21 case is utterly anodyne, but he’s entirely correct when he says that slapping a s. 33 notice onto every law that might violate a Charter right effectively extinguishes those rights.
The Supreme Court has options here, and it should (and likely will) look closely at the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal’s recent ruling in the Bill 137 case regarding parental consent around pronoun use in schools. The Sask. CA ruled that “notwithstanding the notwithstanding clause,” so to speak, courts still have jurisdiction to declare that a law violates Charter rights. All that s. 33 does is prevent judges from striking the law down or rendering it of no force and effect on those grounds. In other words, legislatures can shield laws from invalidation, but they can’t shield them from judicial scrutiny or from declaratory findings of unconstitutionality. That seems to me the very least that a court can do, and it’s what I hope the SCC says about Bill 21.
Canada passed a Bill of Rights in 1960, but the courts treated it like any other law and when it came into conflict with other laws, invariably the other laws won. Entrenching the Charter in the newly patriated Constitution was done specifically and explicitly to ensure that this Charter’s provisions took precedence over the contents of any other laws — they’re called “fundamental rights” for a reason. Section 1 was the escape hatch for that declaration, and s. 33 was an additional emergency exit inserted for political purposes. That’s what the Supreme Court needs to be reminded of when considering Bill 21 and its noxious provisions, and I hope they’ll remind the rest of the country as well in due course.
This seems the most likely route the SCC will take and it has the virtue of avoiding a rewrite of the Constitution, although it will modify previous SCC precedent (see the Ford case). Hard to believe judges will decide they do not have the jurisdiction/power to do something. Successful use of the notwithstanding clause relies upon withstanding public opinion. Whether a court determines that a law infringes on a fundamental right will impact public opinion. That’s why provinces want pre-emptive use of s. 33 to effectively silence any possible word from the courts. It seems altogether unclear that such pre-emptive use of the nothwithstanding clause was what was contemplated in the negotiation of the Charter and Constitution by the feds and provinces sans Québec in 1982.
At the same time, I think we all understand that while the political context to this case is national in scope, the feds are thinking more particularly about next year’s Québec election with current polls putting the Parti Québécois firmly in majority territory. While of course we might hope that the AG of Canada would be more concerned with the status of fundamental rights over the short-termism of an upcoming provincial election, perhaps there is someone at a desk in Ottawa somewhere thinking about the impact a PQ election would have on national unity given the PQ’s commitment to hold a referendum by 2030 if they form the next government. I suppose we could also throw in minority government calculations and where the Bloc Québécois fits in.
Finally, it cannot be surprising to see Conservatives come out in favour of the use of the notwithstanding clause considering Pierre Poilievre’s election pledge earlier this year to use s. 33 to shield his intended amendments to the Criminal Code that would ensure those convicted of multiple murders never get out of prison or Danielle Smith’s potential use of it to shield laws affecting transgender youth. What is surprising is that these political considerations could not get the current AG of Canada to get more worked up about the use of s. 33.
State employees are the state, which is why they don't have rights against the state. The purpose of rights is to protect us from them, not to protect their "rights" when acting as officials.
Many of our problems today stem from the idea of state employees as a bizarre hybrid of private citizens who deserve to be protected from the state and official who can tell everyone else what to do. "Rights", for state employees, only apply when they are off the clock.
This was another excellent piece. Thanks, Paul.
I followed the constitutional bickering with great interest when Trudeau, the Elder put his political capital on the line to "bring the Constitution home". This was just one of many chess moves that the Liberals had made going back to the Pearson days to formally sever the country's ties to Great Britain. A new Canadian flag is another obvious example.
Reading the commentary across many Canadian platforms regarding this newest Liberal legal power play, including the nausea inducing column that appeared in the G&M, is the lack of context that produced a Notwithstanding clause in the first place.
Three Premiers from western Canada (Lyon, Blakeney and Lougheed) were wary of jurists deciding what the rights entailed. They foresaw a situation where the courts could make charter decisions that were obstructionist in nature, cancelling out legislators who had broader public obligations to consider. These Premiers believed in the Westminster principle of the supremacy of the legislature and demanded a Notwithstanding clause that gives the final say to the commoners, not unelected judges.
It's my view that we are at a point of reflection. Do Canadians believe in our Westminster traditions and the role of the commoners to make the laws for the good of the people? Or are we prepared to concede more and more power to the courts, rendering our legislators as good as useless? It certainly appears that the Liberals have no faith in their ability to govern and make difficult choices, but choose to hide behind their proxies on the federal courts.
Well said!
Great article Paul.
Minister Fraser really should be spending more time with his family! He clearly is struggling to deal with this portfolio on most issues that arise.
Wondering what diplomatic post he will want?
I do not understand what he is talking about !!! A minister ?
Back in undergrad (a little over a decade ago) we had exchange students from France, and the one in several of my classes was of Arab ancestry and Muslim. I forget how we got on the topic, but she related to me that classroom discipline in France is strict and one is not allowed to eat or drink in the classroom. When Ramadan came around, she asked the professor of her evening class (in France) if she could discreetly break her fast with a snack during class; she was told no. So at sundown she would excuse herself to the restroom and break her fast in the ladies' room.
Whenever laicite comes up, I think of my friend eating snacks in a bathroom stall.
Coming from a country that has no charter of rights (the UK) it amused me to discover that Canada did, but that there was a clause that said governments could ignore them if they felt like it. I arrived in the same decade as the adoption of the charter but too late for its passage, so missed out on the, no doubt fulsome, negotiations. It seems an odd document, where government can ignore "fundamental" rights and the supreme court can add (sorry, read in) rights that they think the authors missed.
Sorry, I'm rambling. I liked the Act Ensuring Teachers Won’t Wear Headscarves. Much better than The Act Respecting the Laicity of the State
I too arrived from the UK but in 1977, aged 25, and was quite bemused by Canada’s obsession with constitutional matters. Still, it made for some good political theatre.
In college in London I studied British Constitution - remarkable for the absence of any such document!
I'd be interested in a legislative rule that says every bill gets named by someone slightly hostile to its intents.
I find the US habit of naming acts so that the acronym is a word amusing (Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism) - though I would prefer the acronyms to be sillier.
I sense another Monty Python fan!!
Sean Frasier failed at housing and failed at immigration. Now he is Attorney General. Enough said.
Yessss
This is all fruit of the poisonous tree, Paul. If a legislature has the right to defy the constitution and deprive people of their rights, how much good is your constitution doing you?
Some compromises are too compromising.
It’s not so much defying the constitution as giving legislators the power to check the judiciary’s interpretation of it.
Then why is Legault invoking it ahead of a court challenge?
Because he’s anticipating a judicial challenge obviously
What are you talking about? How does a legislature pre-empting the judiciary invalidate what I said?
This isn’t about checking the interpretation of an activist judge, this is a deliberate deprivation of people’s Charter rights.
Quebec’s law has the support of the electorate in Quebec which has a history of subjugation under the sectarian thumb of the Catholic Church and which has since thrown off those shackles in their public school system and now more broadly across government. It is interesting that no one here has made any argument in favour of secularism over sectarianism preferring instead to label Quebecers as intolerant racists. The success of the west and western forms of government has been until recently, predicated on secular principles vis a vis government administration: The state must appear neutral regarding religion to all citizens, particularly when public servants exercise authority over the public (e.g., judges, police, teachers). Wearing religious symbols could signal state endorsement of a particular faith or worldview, weakening democratic principles of fairness and inclusion. Public servants in authority must treat all citizens equally. Displaying religious identity may raise doubts about their impartiality, especially among members of minority or non-religious groups. The same standards often apply to restrictions on expressing political affiliations in workplaces. The wearing of conspicuous religious symbols might be perceived as an attempt to proselytize, influence, or coerce others, including vulnerable individuals in education or justice contexts. This could undermine the principle that the state should not sway its citizens’ beliefs or discriminate based on religion. The ban represents a modest sacrifice, since it restricts religious expression only during working hours and in specific functions of public authority, not in private life. Just as public servants are barred from showing partisan political symbols at work, exhibiting religious symbols may be understood as expressing views incompatible with expected professional discretion and the public’s expectation of a neutral service environment. Pluralism in society should be staunchly defended by a decidedly secular state.
The absence on the part of the federal government, of the courage to voice a clear opinion on the matter and instead pass the puck to the supremes, is worthy of the contempt that Mr. Wells so eloquently expressed in this piece.