[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Barrister]

Trudeau spends the first National Truth and Reconciliation Day holidaying at Tofino.   



Anyone out there get the day off, or do anything special to mark the occasion?  I had pre-existing court commitments so I just worked as normal.

I work 12hrs from home.  Lots of problem at work <sigh>.
It ain't a mandatort day off in Quebec anyway.  They should have used Patriot's day/Queen's day instead.  No one ever does anything special there anyway, so it could have had some actual use.

Victoria Day?

[Grey Fox]

Trudeau spends the first National Truth and Reconciliation Day holidaying at Tofino.   



Anyone out there get the day off, or do anything special to mark the occasion?  I had pre-existing court commitments so I just worked as normal.

I work 12hrs from home.  Lots of problem at work <sigh>.
It ain't a mandatort day off in Quebec anyway.  They should have used Patriot's day/Queen's day instead.  No one ever does anything special there anyway, so it could have had some actual use.

Victoria Day?

Yes. That's what he's referring too.

[viper37]

Trudeau spends the first National Truth and Reconciliation Day holidaying at Tofino.   



Anyone out there get the day off, or do anything special to mark the occasion?  I had pre-existing court commitments so I just worked as normal.

I work 12hrs from home.  Lots of problem at work <sigh>.
It ain't a mandatort day off in Quebec anyway.  They should have used Patriot's day/Queen's day instead.  No one ever does anything special there anyway, so it could have had some actual use.

Victoria Day?

Yeah, Victoria Day.  Some Queen or another

[Neil]

Anyone out there get the day off, or do anything special to mark the occasion?  I had pre-existing court commitments so I just worked as normal.

Had the day off.  Unsurprisingly, I didn't do anything to mark the occasion.

[viper37]

Anyone out there get the day off, or do anything special to mark the occasion?  I had pre-existing court commitments so I just worked as normal.

Had the day off.  Unsurprisingly, I didn't do anything to mark the occasion.

it's a shame your dad didn't buy public lands for 1$ before gifting them to you.  You could have had a nice cottage with the money you'd made selling it at market value.

[viper37]

Seems Quebec is going in the right way and it is even more obvious now that our secularity laws have nothing to do with racism.

Better school results after veil is forbidden in school for Muslim girls

[Grey Fox]

*soupir*

[viper37]

*soupir*

Want more?

Why the Supreme Court should leave Bill 21 alone

No outcome will satisfy everyone, but hearing the case risks pushing Canada into one of its worst political crises, largely over misunderstandings.
by Ed Whitcomb

Professor Mario Polèse has done us all a great favour with his balanced analysis in Policy Options: "Quebec's Bill 21: Is there room for more than one view of religion in Canada?" He correctly points out that most non-francophone Canadians oppose the bill. I am one of the exceptions probably because of a unique background. I taught European history, specializing in the French Revolution. I have lived in four of Canada's five regions and am from a multi-religious family. I have written histories of every Canadian province and a history of federalism (Rivals for Power: Ottawa and the Provinces, the contentious history of the Canadian federation) that provided insights into Quebec's relations with the rest of Canada and the reasons for the notwithstanding clause. I have worked on human rights and Indigenous issues. Finally, as a career diplomat, I lived in and studied many multi-racial and multi-religious countries.

Banning the wearing of religious symbols by those civil servants who dealt directly with the public began during the French Revolution. The issue arose during the religious wars when Catholics and Protestants conquered each other's towns, killing everyone and perpetrating unspeakable cruelties. The way to tell friends from foes was the wearing of the cross. Revolutionary politicians addressed the problem in part by separating church from state.

Marriage certificates are essential for the legal functioning of society, so the revolutionary government required couples to conduct a civil marriage before a municipal official (state). The couple could wear religious symbols (church), but the official could not (state) because doing so could offend or even frighten the happy couple who might be Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, atheist or agnostic. Had his right to "freedom of religion" (church in state) prevailed over theirs (church from state), chaos would have continued. That remains the policy of France and of other European countries.

In Quebec, the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s separated church from state, and civil servants who provided services to the public stopped wearing crosses. The consensus began to change, however, with the arrival of francophone Muslim immigrants from countries that have not separated church from state. Some of these immigrants insisted on indicating their religion while at work. This increasingly annoyed the Quebecois, who regard the 1960 separation of church from state as one of the most important developments in their entire history. Having civil servants demonstrate their religion was a throwback to what was now regarded as an intolerant, illiberal, inequal and bigoted past. Pressure grew to ban the wearing of all religious symbols by those civil servants who serve the public directly.

There are four sides in this dispute and all are, in a way, correct. Canadians living in Quebec should have the right to wear religious symbols. Quebecers should have the right to be served by civil servants who do not indicate their religious preference. The Quebecois should have the right to decide what laws their government passes. And Canadians have a duty to protect the rights of Canadians everywhere. The problem is that these legitimate rights are irreconcilable. The questions, then, are a) which ones will prevail and b) who will make the decisions?

While the rights of minorities in Quebec have received attention and support in the English-language media, the same cannot be said for the rights of the Quebec public. It is, however, not difficult to imagine examples of citizens who could be very upset and legitimately concerned when encountering civil servants wearing religious symbols. [sauf pour les Jekyll de ce monde, bien sûr]

Think of a car full of Jewish teenagers (with relatives in Israel) stopped by a female police officer wearing a hijab, or a car full of Muslim teenagers (with relatives in Palestine) stopped by a male police officer wearing a kippah. Think of a Bahá'í student whose relatives were killed by Muslim extremists in Iran having a teacher who wears a hijab. Think of Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims from South Asia whose relatives experienced massacres by Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims. Think of an old Cree man who suffered a decade of sexual abuse in a residential school arriving in Montreal for a colonoscopy and being confronted by health providers wearing crosses. While that may happen in English Canada without major issues, it is something that most Quebecois want to avoid because of the unique role of the church before the 1960s.

When Bill 21 was passed, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau mused that governments should not be involved in matters of personal clothing, but his own government's Criminal Code prohibits nudity. All Canadian governments force their citizens to choose between faith and career because many jobs require work on Sundays and Fridays, and devout Christians or Jews who insist on honouring their Sabbath cannot demand those jobs. Others may be barred from certain jobs if their headgear, beards or other practices present a health or safety problem. These people all chose between faith and career. There is nothing new here.

The notwithstanding clause is one of the most controversial and misunderstood elements in the Constitution. The proposed changes of the early 1980s clearly indicated a transfer of power from legislatures to the judiciary and ultimately the Supreme Court.

Provinces were very concerned with the idea of federally appointed justices overturning their legislation and with the possibility of six judges from English Canada overturning laws passed by the Quebec National Assembly, or the risk of six judges from Central Canada overturning laws passed in the eight smaller provinces.

Back in 1867, the main point of adopting a federal system was to avoid this "dictatorship of the majority." After bitter debate in the early 1980s, Ottawa accepted that in certain cases the Supreme Court could not overrule certain provincial laws, "notwithstanding" the additional powers provided to the courts in the new charter.

Taking Bill 21 to the Supreme Court has very serious constitutional implications. It could be overturned only if at least two justices from outside Quebec agree with the three Quebec justices. If no Quebec justices agreed to overturn it, we could see a majority of justices from outside Quebec appointed by the central government with three-quarters of its seats in the Commons from outside Quebec imposing, in effect, anglophone views on francophone Quebec. That is what federalism was designed to avoid. It would mean that five or six justices from English Canada could overrule almost any Quebec legislation. If the Quebecois then wished to remain "masters in their own house," their only option would be separation. As the cliché goes, one should be careful what one wishes for.

Another issue may be whether the Supreme Court should even hear a case that involves potentially weakening the notwithstanding clause. That clause was deliberately designed to limit the amount of power transferred from provincial legislatures to the Supreme Court. Rejecting or weakening Bill 21 might be seen in Quebec and in other provinces as an attempt by the Supreme Court itself to weaken the limits that were deliberately put on its power by 11 elected governments.

No outcome will satisfy everyone, but the best may well be that the Supreme Court decides not to hear the case or that the six justices from outside Quebec recuse themselves. If not, Canada may stumble into one of its worst political crises ever, largely over misunderstandings of religious rights and their limitations, the purpose of federalism, the rights of minorities, and of minorities within minorities, as well as a profound misunderstanding of the notwithstanding clause.

Or perhaps the notwithstanding clause is not misunderstood, and some people actually believe that English Canadians should be able to impose their values on Quebec (and that Central Canadians should be able to impose their values on smaller provinces) and use the Supreme Court to do it, notwithstanding the notwithstanding clause.

https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/august-2021/why-the-supreme-court-should-leave-bill-21-alone/

[HVC]

*soupir*

Man, even sighing in french sounds more pretentious haha

[Jacob]

So apparently there's a referendum on equalization payments in Alberta: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-equalization-referendum-1.6214401

What's the deal here?

[Barrister]

So apparently there's a referendum on equalization payments in Alberta: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-equalization-referendum-1.6214401

What's the deal here?

The reasoning behind it is this: that under the Quebec Succession Reference, the SCC has stated that if a province votes in favour of a constitutional change there is an obligation on the ROC to negotiate that in good faith.  But obviously with the majority of provinces benefitting from equalization such a change will never happen.  So really it's just a method of driving anti-Ottawa sentiment - or at least that was the plan.

But the issue has generated basically zero discussion, and with Kenney's deep unpopularity he runs the risk of losing this.

I think the referendum was silly, and I don't think equalization should be abolished.  But I'm probably just going to vote "yes" because a "no" vote would be so devastating to the UCP.

[crazy canuck]

So apparently there's a referendum on equalization payments in Alberta: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-equalization-referendum-1.6214401

What's the deal here?

Another example of right wing misinformation campaigns.

From the Globe

Political scientist Jared Wesley, the lead on a recent University of Alberta survey on referendum voting intentions, said the poll suggested the Yes side remains in the lead. But he said a disturbingly high percentage doesn't understand how equalization works (44 per cent), wrongly believes Quebec gets the most per capita (85 per cent), and fails to understand Ottawa does not need provincial buy-in to change the equalization formula (62 per cent).

"I don't blame Albertans for being confused," said Wesley. "They've been fed a lot of misinformation by governments in this province for a lot of decades, and that's showing up in our research."

Wesley said it's a muddy referendum question designed to deliver "strategic ambiguity" for the United Conservative government as it seeks broad leverage.

But leverage, he said, is not what you think you have. Rather, it's what others think you have.

He said the rest of Canada is seeing a province that has received generous federal COVID-19 funding, has called in the military to rescue its COVID-19-ravaged health system, and has seen Ottawa literally buy the Trans Mountain pipeline to help its oil industry.

[Grey Fox]

Vote Yes on the important referendum, Summer time! All time!

[Barrister]

Vote Yes on the important referendum, Summer time! All time!

[Grey Fox]

I knew the façade would fail fairly soon.