- Parliament, the Courts and the Charter
The Conservative Party believes that Parliament, rather than the courts, is the law-making body of Canada. We support the establishment of a parliamentary judicial review committee to prepare an appropriate response to those court decisions that Parliament believes should be addressed through legislation. We re-affirm the legitimacy of the entire Charter of Rights and Freedoms including section 33 (notwithstanding clause). We support legislation to remove authority from the Canadian Human Rights Commission and the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to regulate, receive, investigate or adjudicate complaints related to section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act.
Promising to use the notwithstanding clause means the laws they intend to pass will fail to pass a charter challenge. That should alarm anyone.
If they were to do this, the law would only stand for 5 years before being subject to challenge again, and inevitably it will fail (which is why they used notwithstanding), and the people who were harmed by the government’s use of notwithstanding will sue the government for the violation of their rights and they will win.
We only need to look at Ontario and how it went with Ford’s use.
Th argument for notwithstanding was that it would be used in matters of extreme importance, and in a thoughtful and limited way.
Now it’s being wielded by the right to push policy that feels good to vengeful idiots with no consideration if it would lead to good outcomes. And because Notwithstanding now framed as a left/right matter it will be impossible to get rid of.
So now we’re in a situation where in each election from now until the end of time, we have to convince a clickbait-hungry media and a population distracted by slogans and shiny objects that boring nerdy shit like notwithstanding is something that they must pay attention to.
This fucking sucks.