The Alberta government has invoked the Charter’s notwithstanding clause to prevent court challenges to a trio of laws impacting transgender youth and adults.
The clause is part of a bill now before the house, and Premier Danielle Smith says the move is necessary to protect children’s health and well-being.
She says their health could be jeopardized if challenges to the laws are tied up in court for a long time.
The notwithstanding clause allows governments to override Charter rights if deemed necessary as a way to balance the authority of both politicians and the courts.
The clause relates to laws that put restrictions on student pronoun changes at school, on girls’ and women’s sports, and on medical therapies for young people looking to transition.
Two of those bills are facing court challenges on the grounds they are harmful and unconstitutional.
Ah yes, now the government is deciding health care (not doctors) BY FUCKING VIOLATING YOUR CHARTER RIGHTS.
FFS
Alberta? Makes sense
Get the rocks.
I am livid. I can not put my anger into words right now.
The “strong, Conservative woman” claims that her party doesn’t use the notwithstanding clause “unless the stakes warrant it.”
Right, because clearly the biggest threat in Alberta is trans people. Not lobby money from the oil and gas industry, not the rising cost of living, not the mental health and addictions crisis, it’s clearly a group that makes up 1% at max of the population of the province.
Calling herself a “strong woman” is so unbelievably rich when all she seems able to do is effortlessly punch down on the everyday person. Like awww, how cute, she’s fighting fucking Big Teacher and Big Hormones, fuck off. “Strength” in defending the status quo requires zero effort whatsoever as it simply means doing fuck all, and I will be unapologetic in saying that she is doing nothing but continuing women’s status as objects by acting as a mere chess piece for the male CEOs in oil and gas and other profitable industries that direct her and the UCP’s decisions through political donations.
Un-fucking-believable.
identity politics is the easiest way to give populous something they didn’t ask for but feel like they always needed it
We need to remove that clause from the Charter. The only thing it’s ever used for, is to violate people’s rights. The Charter means absolutely nothing, as long as that clause is included.
I could not agree more. I understand the original intent, but nowadays it’s literally a “get out of fucking over your civil rights - free card”.
Really? You used the NWC for kids wanting gender reassignment medical help, kids asking to be called different pronouns, and kids figuring out which sports team they want to play on?
The stakes could not be higher
Oh fuck off. How about homeless people dying because of hunger, or people getting shot up during armed robberies. Literally life and death shit. How is perverting what the fuck is going on in Lisa’s pants more important than dealing with crime and income inequality?
Danielle - you’ve got more important shit to deal with than focusing all your attention on kids’ genitalia
Not even the first time. IIRC this was used against gay marriage in the 90’s.
Was it?
My memory is that gay marriage was declared unconstitutional by the Ontario Court of Appeal in July 2003. The Chrétien government of the time chose not to appeal it and instead referred a draft bill to the Supreme Court of Canada to ask them to issue a binding ruling. The government (now the Paul Martin government?) did slow things down by adding a fourth question to the referral, which even the Supreme Court called out as political bullshit. Once they came back (in late 2004) affirming that same-sex marriage needed to be legal, there was a lot of talk about using the notwithstanding clause as the only possible option to ignore their ruling. Ultimately, though, the bill legalizing gay marriage federally passed in February of 2005.
I remember in the debates during the subsequent election that Paul Martin accused Stephen Harper of planning to reverse it. Harper rolled his eyes and said that he considered the matter settled (since I think even a lot of Conservative voters were fine with it by then). Martin then promised to remove the NWC from the charter if reelected. He was not.
NWC is specifically used to violate your charter rights. Where are the conservatives who scream about governments taking away personal freedoms?
Fuck her so much. God damn marlaina fucking fascist piece of shit
Man Fuck MAGAlberta
Protect them from what, Danielle?
Diverse viewpoints, I’m thinking.
Hi. I’ve never watched hockey.
Is there a mechanism to override a province’s use of the clause? Also, does the federal government also have the option to invoke it?
To your first question, not really. The entire point of the notwithstanding clause is such that it cannot be challenged by the court. To your second question, yes.
That’s bananas. So the only choice is to get a later provincial government to revoke whatever rule they passed using it?
The trick is it’s, to my knowledge, never been used to protect something so important before. Usually it’s to protect for more subjective cultural stuff, ie Quebec has used it the most in the name of protecting their French heritage.
I vaguely remember Alberta trying to use it in a similiar ass-backwards fashion once before, to define marriage as being “between a man and a woman,” but it got shut down federally somehow? It’s too late in the evening for me to care to do my research on this, but if you’re interested in how it may or may not be used, I’d look into that case.
Either way, I suspect if its gayphobic use got shut down before, it’s current transphobic use will get shut down too. But, it’s a different world today, so we’ll see.
Obligatory fuck Danielle Smith and everything she is doing to attack trans people and protect pedophiles.
it expires in 5 years as well. They claim they’re doing this because it’s of so much importance that they can’t wait for the court case to be completed which could be years, but if they lose that court case, you full well know they’d just invoke it again if they were still in power 5 years from now and say fuck it the court got it wrong.
Pretty much, yeah.
