[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[Grey Fox]

Straws are bad for your stomach.

[viper37]

The Conservatives are on a war path against Tim Horton's new woke coffee lids.

This is serious debate.

It's not "the Conservatives" - it's one Conservative backbench MP.

And those non-plastic straws really do suck.

I get a Tim's coffee every morning because it's convenient, but honestly about 1 time in 10 the cup already starts just leaking in my hands after awhile.

That they suck or not is beyond the point.

That a Conservative backbench MP was even allowed by the Whip to ask questions on this and use the woke rethoric is stupid.

Don't our MPs have something better than do?  Can't PP find some better assignment for his MPs?

[crazy canuck]

Straws don't suck, people suck.

[Jacob]

Straws don't suck, people suck.

... and that's why they need straws.

[crazy canuck]

People suck just fine without straws

[garbon]

People suck just fine without straws

#notallpeople

[crazy canuck]

Then everyone would suck

[HVC]

Just crossed a sad little anti Trudeau rally downtown. 10 people and a megaphone. At least the yeller seemed enthused.

[Josephus]

Just crossed a sad little anti Trudeau rally downtown. 10 people and a megaphone. At least the yeller seemed enthused.

 

[crazy canuck]

Protest in the real world when there is so much right wing social media to engage with?

I wonder if something similar will happen on election day?

[Jacob]

It's May, and wildfire season in Canada is already well under way.

It's going to be a hot and smoky summer

[PRC]

It's May, and wildfire season in Canada is already well under way.

It's going to be a hot and smoky summer

City of Calgary went through a rebranding process recently and a week ago announced their new tagline would be "the Blue Sky City" (previous was "Be Part of the Energy.").

Just in time for the past weekend when those blue skies were darkened with the thick acrid smoke from Northern BC & Northern Alberta forest fires. 

Oh, and Fort McMurray once again under evacuation alert.

[Barrister]

We received this absolutely massive deluge of rain last week.  I think I head 140mm of rain over 2 days.  Everyone was like "well thank God - that should help with fires".

But the smoke still spreads from northern Alberta and BC.

[Barrister]

JUst came across an article I wanted to comment on:

Pierre Poilievre hints he'd like to strip Canadians of some rights. There's something to think about when it's time to vote
At least one legal scholar in Canada believes voters should be asking some hard questions about the Constitution — specifically, whether a future prime minister would be willing to opt out of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Updated 50 mins ago
May 15, 2024
3 min read
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Pierre Poilievre and delacourt.JPG
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has dropped some broad hints in the past couple of weeks that he could be ready to use the notwithstanding clause to override the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Susan Delacourt writes.

ETHAN CAIRNS THE CANADIAN PRESS
Susan-Delacourt
By Susan DelacourtNational Columnist
No one knows what the ballot-box question will be in the next election, whenever it does come.

But at least one legal scholar in Canada believes voters should be asking some hard questions about the Constitution — specifically, whether a future prime minister would be willing to opt out of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Pierre Poilievre has dropped some broad hints in the past couple of weeks that he could be ready to blaze a trail here as prime minister. No federal government has ever used the notwithstanding clause in the 40-plus years it has been part of the Constitution. But the Conservative leader told a police chiefs' gathering he might go down that road to get tougher on criminals.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

"All of my proposals are constitutional, and we will make sure we will make them constitutional. We're using whatever tools the Constitution allows me to use to make them constitutional," Poilievre said in his Apr. 29 speech.

"I think you know exactly what I mean."

Jeffrey Meyers, a B.C. lawyer and legal instructor, says even hinting about it should worry citizens. He stresses that his concerns have nothing to do with partisanship — he's not a fan of how the Liberals have been trying to politicize this debate in recent days, for instance.

But Meyers says that Poilievre's hints cannot be seen in isolation from what's happening in the United States or the increasing willingness of conservative provinces in Canada to talk about opting out of federal legislation they don't like.


He points also to Doug Ford's efforts to use the notwithstanding clause on political financing and the right to strike, as well as the Ontario premier's comments about wanting "like-minded" judges on the provincial bench.

"The bottom line is that it's getting normalized at the provincial level," Meyers said, and he fears it's only a matter of time before some prime minister, quite possibly Poilievre, will try to do the same at the federal level.

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That's how the law and the courts got increasingly politicized in the United States, he argues — to the point where former president Donald Trump is openly badmouthing judges, jurors and the courts, and where a lineup of Republicans appeared this week outside a New York court to describe the legal process as a sham. Not so long ago, this would be seen as outrageous. Now it's just another day in the Trump bid for re-election.

Meyers says there's already a playbook for politicizing the justice system. It starts with taking an established political party, Republicans in the United States, for instance, and then "reshuffling the deck in terms of what the established norms are."

Trump now boasts about how he has made the U.S. Supreme Court more friendly to Republicans and the anti-abortion crowd in the States. Meyers says imagine what Trump would have done — or could do in future — if he had something like an opt-out clause from the American constitution.

"That's a shortcut alarmingly available here."

Meyers, who wrote a column in The Conversation last fall on this very issue, says this is why Poilievre's most recent remarks to the police chiefs deeply worried him; that the Conservative leader is tilling the ground to make opting-out of the Charter no big deal.

"It's a norm that hasn't yet been broken. He breaks that norm, though it undermines the Charter so profoundly. And I just think it really, really changes the direction of the country and in unbelievably significant ways and opens the door also to eventually increasing politicization of the courts ... I don't think that's alarmism. I think that's just real."

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

Meyers, no big fan of Justin Trudeau and the Liberals either, fears the current governing party will "demagogue" the whole debate in ways that citizens will dismiss as the usual political fare. It's not, he says.

What he would like to see is an election campaign in which citizens demand that politicians commit to never using the notwithstanding clause, or, better yet, to getting it out of the Constitution altogether (which wouldn't be easy.)

Former prime minister Paul Martin made that very promise in the dying days of the 2005-06 campaign, which knocked the Liberals out of power. Some Conservatives in the Commons last week were taunting Liberals that all this talk about the notwithstanding clause is a mark of the same desperation that made Martin issue the eleventh-hour promise not to use it.

Canadians should already be braced for an election campaign in which Liberals will accuse Poilievre of trying to import Trumpism to Canada, which Conservatives will frame similarly as desperation or an exaggeration.

Meyers, for his part, doesn't think Canada is immune to the Trump style of politicizing the courts and the basic laws of the land. One clear way to protect ourselves, he says, is to demand that any future government keep its hands off the notwithstanding clause.

https://www.thestar.com/politics/pierre-poilievre-hints-hed-like-to-strip-canadians-of-some-rights-theres-something-to-think/

So it's mostly about the headline.

Look - my dad was a life-long newspaper guy.  He was a reporter, then a columnist, then an editor.  So I know for a fact that the writer of a piece doesn't write the headline.  So while not my favourite, this isn't an attack on Susan Delacourt.

But Poilievre "hints he'd like to strip Canadians of some rights"?  That's just clickbait (or in another era, yellow journalism).  It's always been understood that there is a "conversation" between the courts and parliament.  When the Charter of Rights was introduced that was codified into s. 33 the "notwithstanding" clause.  Parliament is allowed to override court decisions relating to the Charter of Rights if it follows certain requirements.  Most notably it has to be re-done every five years.

This is no way strips Canadians of their rights.

Look - Poilievre hinting he'll use the Notwithstanding clause is certainly worthy of comment.  It's never been used at the federal level, and only sparingly used at the provincial level.  But it's worth noting that several times it was used, the courts wound up agreeing and overturned the lower court decision, making use of s. 33 moot.  Like I said - a conversation.

And where I will go after Delacourt is when half-way through she immediately jumps to Trump.  Attack Poilievre for what he's said, not for what Trump has said or done.

[Jacob]

I trust (and hope) that our parliamentary democracy is going to serve as a bit of a bulwark against the wave of anti-democratic reactionary populism that is currently on the rise in the West.