A Clear And Present Danger

It's wise these days to pay attention to what comes out of Pierre Poilievre's mouth. It's also wise to pay attention to what comes out of the mouths of some of his MPs. Althia Raj writes:

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s Quebec lieutenant made a shocking declaration this week that went unnoticed in English Canada, telling reporters that Conservatives “of course” agree with the provinces’ pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause.

On Tuesday, Quebec MP Pierre Paul-Hus said the party “might not necessarily” contest Quebec’s Bill 21 at the Supreme Court — reversing Poilievre’s previous stance. Then, Paul-Hus added, “Is the use of the notwithstanding clause in a pre-emptive manner, as the provinces have used it — are Conservatives in agreement with that?”

“Bien oui,” he said, meaning, “Of course” — or, literally, “Well, yes.”

This week the Conservatives -- who raised hell when a possible coalition government that included the Bloc Quebcois raised its head -- sided with the BQ:

This week, they all sided with the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois and voted to tell Ottawa — the Liberals and any future federal government — to butt out of the notwithstanding clause debate. (Only Manitoba’s Candice Bergen, Nova Scotia’s Rick Perkins and Ontario’s Alex Ruff, who represents Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, didn’t show up for the vote, and only the Liberals and NDP opposed.)

The motion proposed by the Bloc read: “That the House remind the government that it is solely up to Quebec and the provinces to decide on the use of the notwithstanding clause.”

Remember the history behind the not-withstanding clause:

The notwithstanding clause was a compromise that allowed prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau to enshrine the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms into the Constitution. It gives legislatures the right to override some Charter rights for a renewable period of five years. Several politicians around the table at the time felt the political cost of using the clause would dampen the temptation to use it.

But times have changed:

In 2019, Quebec’s government introduced Bill 21 to popular support. Knowing the legislation was discriminatory, Premier François Legault pre-emptively invoked the notwithstanding clause to protect it from court scrutiny. The clause was pre-emptively used again last year by Quebec when it passed Bill 96, legislation that limits the rights of anglophones in the province and curbs the use of other minority languages.

Then, last fall, Ontario Premier Doug Ford attempted to pre-emptively invoke the clause, too — this time to stop educational support workers from striking.

And now the Conservatives have become allies of the BQ.

Mr. Poilievre and his party are a clear and present danger.

Image: The Toronto Star

Beware Those Who Would Use The Not Withstanding Clause

In 1970, Pierre Trudeau used the War Measures Act -- a harsh and blunt instrument -- to put an end to the FLQ Crisis. Eleven years later, he inserted the Charter Of Rights and Freedoms into a repatriated constitution. To get the premiers to agree to the Charter, he crafted the Not Withstanding Clause. We have come to believe that no premier would ever use the clause. But, Marcus Gee writes:

Ontario Premier Doug Ford has waved this blunt club in the air no less than three times since taking office in 2018: once to threaten to bypass a judge who ruled against a vindictive law to nearly halve the size of Toronto City Council; once to overrule another judge who dared to question a new election-spending law; and then this month to try to impose a settlement on education workers threatening to go on strike.

In Quebec, Premier François Legault has used the override just as casually. He rolled it out to protect a bill that toughens the province’s language strictures and again to fend off judicial scrutiny of his infamous religious-symbols law – the one that forbids teachers from wearing hijabs and cops from wearing turbans.

The symbols law was just the sort of plainly discriminatory measure the Charter was created to prevent. Using the notwithstanding clause to ram the legislation through showed, in the most graphic manner possible, how wrong the don’t-worry-be-happy crowd were when they told us the clause would be used only in “non-controversial” cases.

If either Mr. Ford or Mr. Legault felt any shame for how they acted, they did not show it. Our faith in the restraint of our leaders was misplaced. It’s clear now that they, or others like them down the road, will resort to this constitutional dodge more often, and for worse ends, than we thought.

When that happens, Gee writes, we must "shout from the rooftops:"

The only way to stop them is to make them pay. Those who care about the Charter – and that is most of us – have to shout from the rooftops when they threaten to override it. Mr. Ford faced unexpected fury when he hauled out the notwithstanding club against the education workers. Chastened, he went back to the bargaining table. That shows all is not lost.

There is a lesson here for all of us.

Image: SlidePlayer