Quote:
Originally Posted by calgarygeologist
Justin Trudeau came out strongly in favour of supporting Canadian's rights and freedoms and the charter today during a press conference and talked about how Canadians need to be protected against government intervention which takes away their ability to fight for collective bargaining.
This is the same guy that four years ago voted in support of bill C-89 which legislated Canada Post workers back to work and took away their rights to strike and collectively bargain. At the time, Jagmeet Singh called the bill the, "worst, most draconian" back to work legislation.
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Yes. All of that. But nothing that Trudeau did then broke the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
I *am* seeing people saying "Yeah, but Trudeau DID break the Charter when he imposed Emergency Measures". But reasonable people can see that there is a night and day difference.
I definitely support CUPE, but this is a MUCH, MUCH bigger issue as it makes the Canadian Charter absolutely worthless as any province can choose to make laws that contravene any part of the Charter. Yes, I have been upset when Quebec has used it. I have been irate about Ford using it before. But this is the most outrageous use ... clearly not an emergency or crisis situation... it is making it clear to other provinces that it is now a free-for-all to use the "Notwithstanding Clause". Sure, other provinces will see this and pull out the Notwithstanding Clause each and every labour dispute. That's a given. That's done now. But what about all our other charter rights? Putting limits on who can vote? We have already seen in Quebec where it has been used to attack minorities. It also puts limits on police action. It has just opened a Pandora's box.
Should the Liberals choose to even try using disallowance and void the Ontario Bill (disallowance has not been used since 1943), it will jeopardize an already rocky relationship between the provinces and the federal government. I won't be just Quebec threatening to leave over "federal overreach" but MANY provinces will be beyond irate.
Doug Ford has lit a powder keg. And I don't think anyone can step on that fuse before the explosion happens.