This just in from retired lawyer justdad7. 1/ The current controversy in Saskatchewan shows how the gender debate has become the perfect storm for loss of confidence in the Charter. The Charter has never commanded universal respect among Canadians but in recent years these doubts have increased. 2/
Continue readingTag: Notwithstanding Clause
Politics and its Discontents: Brittlestar Understands
… what the Ford government is either too arrogant or too stupid to get: H/t Brittlestar I imagine only those who favour government by a cadre of contemptible clowns are content right now. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Simple Amongst Us.
The older I get, the less satisfied I am with life. Probably because I have a lifetime of context, events bother me a lot more now than they did earlier in my life. Indeed, my bleaker moments see me almost envying the simple-minded who view the world through a bifurcated
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Just Wondering
I’ve got a busy day ahead of me, but I do have a question: Now that Team Ford in Ontario has brought down the notwithstanding clause hammer to thousands of education workers seeking relief from low wages, thereby making a mockery of collective bargaining rights, do you regret not voting
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Union of Provincial Employees goes to court to challenge UCP law that criminalizes public protest
It was inevitable that sooner or later someone would challenge the United Conservative Party Government’s so-called Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, which appears on its face to include patently unconstitutional attacks on fundamental rights protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In the event, the challenge was sooner and
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta’s Bill 1 is bad law, bad theatre, and an unconstitutional attack on the fundamental rights of citizens
If the passage of Bill 1 by the Alberta Legislature last month demonstrates anything, it’s the contempt in which Premier Jason Kenney and the United Conservative Party hold the rule of law. Mr. Kenney and his well-behaved UCP caucus know that Canada’s Constitution is the supreme law of the land.
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Are secret mandatory government bargaining orders the new face of public-sector labour relations in Alberta?
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and his government moved yesterday to impose big changes on public sector bargaining in Alberta, not to mention a host of other areas. They’re sure to unleash a flood of litigation. There’s enough stuff embedded in the Harper-Government-style omnibus budget legislation introduced to the Alberta Legislature
Continue readingAlberta Politics: ‘Free votes’ on ‘matters of conscience’ may seem incongruous for a guy like Jason Kenney, but then again, maybe not …
Last Thursday, presumably hoping to distract from the NDP’s launch of an advertising campaign illuminating the dark side of Jason Kenney, the United Conservative Party leader announced a passel of policy ideas that would include significant changes to how the Legislature operates. Among Mr. Kenney’s ideas were a ban on
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: Has Jason Kenney Evolved?
The Up Series is an amazing documentary that follows the lives of 14 British children over five decades. The children were interviewed every seven years starting in 1964 when they were seven years old. The next instalment, 63 Up, will be released in 2019. The children came from the working
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Lake of Fire Update: Stuff is still hitting the fan, and it may not be lava!
Well a certain kind of stuff has certainly hit the fan since it was reported here and elsewhere that John Carpay, the well-known social conservative warrior, had dipped his toe into Alberta’s always-dangerous Lake of Fire. Since the story broke over the long weekend, Mr. Carpay and his old comrade
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Jason Kenney’s Passage to India is nothing more than a nice fall holiday with two friends
United Conservative Party Leader Jason Kenney and UCP MLAs Prasad Panda and Devin Dreeshen took off for India yesterday. The main problem with the UCP passage to India is that, no matter how Mr. Kenney describes it, the six-day visit is really nothing more than a nice fall vacation in
Continue readingSusan on the Soapbox: The Notwithstanding Clause: A Gift from Doug Ford to Jason Kenney
Sometimes silence speaks louder than words. Last week Doug Ford went straight to the nuclear option when a judge told him no Doug, you can’t downsize Toronto city council in the middle of a municipal election just because you feel like it. Mr Ford says he’s going to invoke the
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Thank you, Doug Ford, for making it clear our Constitution isn’t worth the paper it’s written on!
By making use of the Canadian Constitution’s Notwithstanding Clause to wreak petty vengeance on his old adversaries at Toronto City Hall, Ontario Premier Doug Ford has actually done Canadians a favour. After 36 years of delusional complacency, we have now had confirmed what anyone who was really paying attention knew
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Doug Ford achieves the impossible: he’s gotten Canadians interested in constitutional reform!
Office-holding Conservative politicians and operatives of their well-funded Astro-Turf and think tank support network across Canada have now virtually to a man and woman jumped aboard Ontario Conservative Premier Doug Ford’s runaway constitutional train, defending his use of Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ override clause to gerrymander electoral districts in
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Doug Ford and the Harperite Conspiracy
It was a scene I never thought I would see in Canada. It could only happen in Doug Ford's Ontario.And it can only be called fascism.Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government has tabled legislation that uses the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause to push through a bill slashing Toronto council in half because
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Dougtatorship notwithstanding, what have you got to fear, Mr. Scheer?
What have you got to fear, Andrew Scheer? Is there a single office-holding Conservative in this country who is willing to stand up for the fundamental rights of Canadians as they are assaulted by Ontario Premier Doug Ford and his unrestrained Dougtatorship? What an opportunity this could have been for
Continue readingScott's DiaTribes: Flawed Ford Logic On NWS Clause
Of all the scenarios out there where I’d envision a provincial government in Ontario invoking or trying to invoke Section 33 of the Charter (the “notwithstanding clause”) to override court decisions based on the Charter… a situation involving a BIll that shrinks municipal government in Toronto wasnt in my top
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The era of Notwithstanding Clause restraint is over … get used to it!
The era of Notwithstanding Clause restraint is over. Get used to it. To borrow someone else’s felicitous metaphor, Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms was always an unexploded bomb lurking in the rubble of our country’s constitutional history like a decaying munition under the modern-day pavements
Continue readingMontreal Simon: Doug Ford and the Day of the Dictator
When I saw the look on the faces of Doug Ford and his Con handler, I didn't need to turn up the sound on the TV to know what he was going to say. I had predicted what was about to happen long ago. And sure enough I was right.Read more »
Continue readingAlberta Politics: The Vriend Case has been closed for 20 years, but the Alberta political story continues
PHOTOS: The front page of the Toronto Globe and Mail on the day after the Supreme Court’s historic ruling in the Vriend case. Below: A screenshot of Delwin Vriend taken from a recent CBC video; the late Ralph Klein, premier of Alberta (Photo: Chuck Szmurlo, Wikimedia Commons); Jason Kenney, circa
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