Though in fairness to Ford, I don’t think anyone could have been expected to predict that result, and it’s questionable whether the ad was a cause or merely a pretext. I think the decision to stop running the ad was the right decision but that’s not to say it was a bad decision to run the ad in the first place. That logic goes in the direction of saying there’s nothing anyone can do but cower in fear until Trump’s appointment with the grim reaper materializes.
Hopefully, the Supreme Court will declare these tariffs ultra vires. If not, I can imagine some will suggest the Supreme Court is bought and paid for something I would never say.
Essentially it weakens Trump's position even more.
You mean the Canadian ad weakens Trump's position?
FWIW, with Trump, it's kinda hard to discern a DIRECT connection between any one of his embarrassments or scandals, and any damage to his political fortunes. Not that there hasn't been damage to his political fortunes, but you can't really pinpoint an exact event that pushed things in that direction, or in what way. Everything just kinda melts into a miasmal mist of negative publicity for the guy.
(Not saying he's neccessarily down for the count, just that, to whatever extent he IS damaged by the controversies surrounding him, it tends to be in an amorphous fashion.)
Hopefully, the Supreme Court will declare these tariffs ultra vires. If not, I can imagine some will suggest the Supreme Court is bought and paid for something I would never say.
I'll be interested to see how the opposing blocs line up on the SCOTUS for this decision, because tariffs are one of those issues that don't break down cleanly along the political spectrum, but possibly moreso on the jurisdictional one.
I have a theory about how at least one particular justice will vote, but I don't wanna drag this too far away from Canadian politics.
Though in fairness to Ford, I don’t think anyone could have been expected to predict that result, and it’s questionable whether the ad was a cause or merely a pretext. I think the decision to stop running the ad was the right decision but that’s not to say it was a bad decision to run the ad in the first place. That logic goes in the direction of saying there’s nothing anyone can do but cower in fear until Trump’s appointment with the grim reaper materializes.
Fair enough. Everyone's pretty just helplessly improvising on acid when it comes to handling Trump. I will say that I think that, while negotiations may have been proceeding along in a fruitless and irritating fashion, the precise timing of the recent suspension was, in fact, closely connected with the ad. I doubt Trump's logic was "Hmm, I need an excuse to break off negotiations with Canada? What's that? They criticized me in an ad during the World Series? Well, how d'ya like them bananas. Okay, go with that, I guess."
What was there to apologise about? Telling the truth?
I assume Carney is not thinking in terms of the platonic forms of right and wrong. Probably closer to the mental template of a hostage-negotiator planning out how to address a ranting bozo who's waving a loaded gun around in a strip-mall parking lot.
That being said, I do remain pretty undecided about whether it was Ford or Carney who made the right calls in this whole political event. I suspect Carney is taking his cue more from the early-Trudeau/Trump relationship(see photo-ops with Ivanka at the Resolute Desk; Pierre referenced in 2017 SotU), whereas Ford for whatever reason thinks a more antagonistic, in-your-face approach will work.
Ford is vulnerable to the charge of cheap populist-postuting, given that he's not directly answerable for the fate of the negotiations, but I still can't say with pure certainty that his approach is unhelpful.
My impression is that there is probably some level of communication between the feds and Ontario on questions of approach, with Ford saying some things that one might want to have said but which it would be impolitic for Carney to say. Though obviously Carney and Ford are very different people with different ways of doing things generally.
My impression is that there is probably some level of communication between the feds and Ontario on questions of approach, with Ford saying some things that one might want to have said but which it would be impolitic for Carney to say. Though obviously Carney and Ford are very different people with different ways of doing things generally.
Yeah, I was speculating there might be a good cop/bad cop routine going on.
Though, assuming Carney's not lying, he HAS stated that he was shown the ad, but counseled against running it.
I wouldn’t be inclined to treat Carney’s public comments as evidence under oath… but that said, it’s obvious that Carney’s basic way of doing things is very different from Ford’s and it’s entirely possible he sees Ford more as giant pain in the backside than as a useful ally. Historians will eventually enlighten future generations about this, though unfortunately I think our chances of knowing what anyone in power really thinks here and now are basically zero.
I don't think anyone wants another election right now - certainly not the electorate.
In other news Ford confirms that Carney asked him to pull the ads - although he seems to be rather whiny about the whole thing. David Eby in BC has apparently decided not to run they ads they came up with - discretion better part of valour or something like that.
I wouldn’t be inclined to treat Carney’s public comments as evidence under oath… but that said, it’s obvious that Carney’s basic way of doing things is very different from Ford’s and it’s entirely possible he sees Ford more as giant pain in the backside than as a useful ally. Historians will eventually enlighten future generations about this, though unfortunately I think our chances of knowing what anyone in power really thinks here and now are basically zero.
I keep hoping that a Pepys sits hidden at the cabinet table, and reports to his diary the PM's post-cabinet-sherry comments....
Obviously the NDP isn’t ready for an election while still selecting a new leader. I doubt there would be a lot of enthusiasm right now among swing voters for another election which makes it a risky proposition for the CPC. Not to mention they’ve just lost two MPs, one of them to the Liberals. And at the risk of belabouring the obvious Mark Carney is not Justin Trudeau.
But how would you remedy that without taking away legislatures' right to use Section 33? Do you still allow it, but put a cap on the number of times it can be used in a year, so it can't get to the point where it's rendering the Charter non-existent? And then how do you decide which legislatures get that right in a given year, and which don't?
It seems to me the more plausible thing would be to amend the constitution to make 33 moot. Not sure how you'd go about doing that, though.
There’s going to be a lot of litigation on the notwithstanding clause (section 33 of the Charter) in the SCC in the next little while, and we’ll see what they say. One of the issues is whether a court can explicitly say that a law would be unconstitutional but for section 33, or whether invoking section 33 insulates legislation from any kind of constitutional scrutiny whatsoever.
In theory it would be possible to amend the Charter to remove section 33 but with the governments of all of Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta invested in keeping section 33 in the Charter right now there’s no way that amendment would get past the amending formula (regardless of which standard applies which I don’t remember offhand).
The Attorney General of Canada has filed written submissions that say that section 33 cannot be used so as to effectively permanently amend the Charter but it’s hard to know what this really means at a practical level.
Those interested should follow these two cases, which will both be heard sometime in 2026:
I don’t know whether the Alberta legislation will be challenged now or whether they will hold off until the SCC weighs in. I have wondered whether the Alberta ban on gender-affirming care might be challenged on federalism grounds (on the basis that it is in substance criminal law where provinces have no jurisdiction) - section 33 does not apply in such contexts. But I don’t really know enough about the legislation or the Court’s federalism jurisprudence to have much of a sense of whether that kind of argument has any prospect of success.
The legal way to gut the Notishstabding Clause us to use the federal Disallowance Power to prevent is use. That would require a very bold and courageous federal government.
The legal way to gut the Notishstabding Clause us to use the federal Disallowance Power to prevent is use. That would require a very bold and courageous federal government.
I think Andrew Coyne was arguing for that move a coupla years back, in the event of 33 becoming a regular thing.
His implied point/counterpoint basically went...
PISSED OFF PREMIERS: Like it or not ya federal squirrel-heads, Section 33 is in the constitution!!
Yes, I recall that article and liked the analysis that one extreme should be met with another extreme.
Though I suppose if we are proposing that constitutional ad absurdums actually be put into practice, is there anything to stop the king from saying "I'm not happy about my vice-regals blocking invocation of the Notwithstanding Clause, so I think they need to be replaced with chaps who respect the will of the legislatures"?
Happily Lieutenan Governors are appointed by Ottawa, not the King. We pretend they represent the King but in the letter of the Constitution, they are appointed by Ottawa, paid by Ottawa and instructed by Ottawa.
Happily Lieutenan Governors are appointed by Ottawa, not the King. We pretend they represent the King but in the letter of the Constitution, they are appointed by Ottawa, paid by Ottawa and instructed by Ottawa.
If the federal government were to start using disallowance to block invocation of 33, could you have a situation like...
...the ruling party in Ottawa likes Province X but dislikes Province Y. So, when Province X tries to use 33 to over-rule a court decision, the feds allow them to do it, but when Province Y tries to do the same thing, the feds disallow it?
Because, honestly, I would see that as the most likely scenario, rather than the federal government pursuing a policy of either consistently allowing or consistently disallowing 33 based on overarching principles.
Although still very much there in the text of the 1867 Constitution Act the disallowance and reservation powers seem to have disappeared in practice. The Supreme Court in the 1998 Quebec Secession Reference seems to consider them as now effectively nonexistent because inconsistent with the broader concept of Canada as a federal state. As @stetson points out if the power exists there’s no requirement that it be used consistently or in a principled way.
My take on section 33 is that while I’m not happy about the frequency and circumstances in which it is being invoked these days the sky is not genuinely falling… yet, at least. It’s a built in safety valve that avoids a head-on collision between the legislature and the courts if the legislature really cannot live with something the courts have done or that they think the courts are going to do. And as @sharkshooter says the override is only in effect for five years at a time. There’s a potential for constitutional structures to become genuinely unstuck if it is invoked routinely but it is also a feature that allows the overall structure to bend without breaking in times of stress.
Happily Lieutenan Governors are appointed by Ottawa, not the King. We pretend they represent the King but in the letter of the Constitution, they are appointed by Ottawa, paid by Ottawa and instructed by Ottawa.
The last time I heard disallowance discussed among constitutional academic talking heads, they argued that it was a spent provision. My own feeling is that this position was nonsense-- non-use does not constitute amendment by silence, otherwise we would have lots of laws ineffective by expiry. It got a bad rep from Victorian times when a federal government of one colour would cancel out laws of a provincial government of another colour. While t he ability of the federal government to do was likely the clear intent of the provision, political realities led federal governments to steer away from it-- I think that last time was when Alberta tried to print its own money. Eugene Forsey argued strongly for the federal power here in a still-entertaining book.
When I was once important many many years ago, I was in the room when Section 33 was being discussed "at a developmental stage." I do not think that any participants imagined that it would be used to head off challenges, but that it would only come into play after a court decision. Participants (I think that Lloyd Axworthy has said this) believed that province which used the clause would be trounced at the next provincial election. That's yet to happen.
I think that last time was when Alberta tried to print its own money.
Along with a law forcing newspapers to print Social Credit propaganda, both of which the LtGov predicted would be trashed by the courts in due order. Aberhart ended up locking him out of his official residence, I believe.
Participants (I think that Lloyd Axworthy has said this) believed that province which used the clause would be trounced at the next provincial election. That's yet to happen.
Ah, yes. The quaint liberal idealist's faith in the unshakable virtue of the average voter. I know someone who started predicting circa 2020 that the Conservative Party was headed for extinction, just as soon as Canadians realized that they were overrun with religious fanatics and big-oil shills.
The SCC would be put in awkward position in the feds ever relied on the disallowance power. On the one hand, there’s arguably a constitutional convention against its use; on the other hand, the 1867 Act provides for it in so many words and that provision has never been repealed.
Axworthy has always struck me as somebody a bit too inclined to assume that every reasonable person would necessarily agree with him about everything. (My late uncle worked for him for a brief period many many years ago and apparently couldn’t stand him - in fairness, I can readily imagine that the personalities involved were not remotely compatible.) Recently section 33 seems to be getting invoked by governments who think they can keep their key stakeholders happy without too much downside come election time. Which may be a question of failure of opposition parties to do their job in making themselves an electable alternative.
Re the CPC they would probably be in government now if they had any respect for where Canadian voters’ heads are. Obviously not extinct, and they may yet get themselves elected under their current (sarcasm alert) intrepid leader, but they lost the last election more than the Liberals won it.
It puzzles me that the Supreme Court would get involved in a Disallowance case at all. Like Augustine, I believe it's black-letter law. Statutory provisions always beat customs. Just because it makes some people uncomfortable doesn't mean it's illegal; I feel we're turning feelings into law by saying the Disallowance Power is obsolete.
It’s complicated. The language I was referring to is in para 55 of the SCC’s decision in the 1998 Secession Reference:
55 It is undisputed that Canada is a federal state. Yet many commentators have observed that, according to the precise terms of the Constitution Act, 1867, the federal system was only partial. See, e.g., K. C. Wheare, Federal Government (4th ed. 1963), at pp. 18-20. This was so because, on paper, the federal government retained sweeping powers which threatened to undermine the autonomy of the provinces. Here again, however, a review of the written provisions of the Constitution does not provide the entire picture. Our political and constitutional practice has adhered to an underlying principle of federalism, and has interpreted the written provisions of the Constitution in this light. For example, although the federal power of disallowance was included in the Constitution Act, 1867, the underlying principle of federalism triumphed early. Many constitutional scholars contend that the federal power of disallowance has been abandoned (e.g., P. W. Hogg, Constitutional Law of Canada (4th ed. 1997), at p. 120).
I have no idea what the cash value of this is, and we won’t find out until and unless the feds decide to test the issue. But the SCC wouldn’t be saying this unless they thought it might have some practical import. (Hogg is the leading professional reference book on Canadian constitutional law - Hogg himself passed away in 2020 but the textbook itself remains very much in existence, edited by his former students.)
Re the CPC they would probably be in government now if they had any respect for where Canadian voters’ heads are. Obviously not extinct, and they may yet get themselves elected under their current (sarcasm alert) intrepid leader, but they lost the last election more than the Liberals won it.
Yeah, but ever since at least the days of Mackenzie King, it's been more common for the conservative party to be outta power and the Liberals in power. So a run of lost elections for the Cons is not some unprecedented collapse, neccessarily heralding permanent destruction.
Since 2019, the Conservatives have held the Liberals to a minority, maintained their status as HMLO, and either upped their seat count or broke even in each election. So they're basically functioning as a relatively strong opposition party.
I don’t think we’re really that far apart on this issue - it’s pretty obvious that the CPC isn’t going to disappear anytime soon, but I think its current direction and leadership has pretty clearly been undermining its chance of forming a government. The Mulroney and Harper governments demonstrated that the Conservatives were capable of forming stable, relatively long-lived governments if they played their cards right - the federal Liberals’ status as the Natural Governing Party is only as strong these days as the CPC wants to make it. Of course Trump did the Liberals a huge favour by starting a trade war with Canada and making Poilievre look not remotely up to the task, but if the Conservatives had run somebody with demonstrated competence and commitment against JT or probably virtually anyone else they most likely would be in power now.
I don’t think we’re really that far apart on this issue - it’s pretty obvious that the CPC isn’t going to disappear anytime soon, but I think its current direction and leadership has pretty clearly been undermining its chance of forming a government.
Yeah, we're in basic agreement. I should re-iterate that the person I was debating was arguing that the Conservatives would suffer an electoral wipeout that would be both complete and permanent, not simply that they would stumble around in the political wilderness for a decade or two, so that's the context for my original argument.
The Mulroney and Harper governments demonstrated that the Conservatives were capable of forming stable, relatively long-lived governments if they played their cards right
I will point out that Robert Stanfield and Joe Clark both epitomized the kinda centrist moderation that Canadians supposedly like in their politicians, but obviously had far less political success than Harper, who was widely seen as a right-wing ideologue, relative to the old PCs.
Of course Trump did the Liberals a huge favour by starting a trade war with Canada and making Poilievre look not remotely up to the task, but if the Conservatives had run somebody with demonstrated competence and commitment against JT or probably virtually anyone else they most likely would be in power now.
Well, FWIW, the supposedly competent Harper let the Liberals get away with a majority, whereas the supposed bozos Scheer and O'Toole managed, respectively, to knock them down to, and then maintain them at, minority status.
As for Poilievre, yeah, I think he's probably the most able Conservative leader since Harper, and would, as you say, be PM right now were it not for Trump's annexationist/tariff routine. Though I've wondered how many voters were making the basically non-ideological assessment that Poilievre wasn't up to the task, and, OTOH, how many viewed him as a right-wing ally of Trump's.
I once had coffee with a former MP, defeated twice in attempts to regain his seat. The second defeat was recent and he was still a bit morose: The other guy got more votes.
This continues to be Mr Polièvre's problem; more people dislike him than like him, and he is hard to sell to the people in the middle. While I'm happy to see him in Opposition, I must admit that Conservatives have put up better candidates in recent years (as well as some doozies who were elected) and we wouldn't be badly off if some of them had been chosen.
As a side note on disallowance, the SCC's recent judgement reads the underlying principle of federalism triumphed early. Many constitutional scholars contend that the federal power of disallowance has been abandoned Scholarly contention isn't definitive... It hasn't been tried for around 80 years now as courts have become arbiters of constitutionality, but I think it would have been a useful discipline for some of our premiers if it had not been so.
Well, we're going to get a chance at a federal-provincial spat as Ontario has tabled a "Bail Reform Bill" to require cash bail in all cases. An article appeared hours later in the Globe and Mail explaining that this was unconstitutional in several ways:
1) Bail law is federal re the Criminal Code.
2) Cash-only bail is income-punitive, which is why it was abandoned and its also a Charter issue.
3) The Supreme Court dealt with bail in 2017 and said detention and cash-bail should be the last resort, release is the presumption.
It's a provincial government having a lark at the Federal Government's expense but I wish they would use some other enue than the criminal justice system as their instrument.
It's a provincial government having a lark at the Federal Government's expense but I wish they would use some other enue than the criminal justice system as their instrument.
I guess the extra-jurisdictional nonsense guarantees the bill a longer and more tortuous career in the court system, with attendant publicity. Whereas if he just changes the motto on the license plates to "KISS OUR ASS, CANADA!" it makes headlines for about a week, and that's about it.
Ford, as I mentioned earlier, is also the the guy who publically yearned for the election of judges, so he seems to have a thing for tough-talking but ultimately non-doable law-and-order postures.
I did worry a bit that I might I might be projecting my own views on PP onto the electorate as a whole. But I think there is at least some continuity between disliking Poilievre for his hyperpartisan populist style politics and having serious doubt about his ability to run a modern first-world country in a time of crisis. Competence at partisan politics and competence at running the country are not the same thing.
Poilievre's failing has been his failure to transition from partisan attack dog to leader. The attack dog role is a lieutenant's job, not the leader's. Harper had John Baird and Poilievre fill the attack dog role while he remained more aloof.
A leader is supposed to be more diplomatic, more substantive and should rise above the fray. A leader is supposed to extend the movement.
Poilievre's failing has been his failure to transition from partisan attack dog to leader. The attack dog role is a lieutenant's job, not the leader's. Harper had John Baird and Poilievre fill the attack dog role while he remained more aloof.
A leader is supposed to be more diplomatic, more substantive and should rise above the fray. A leader is supposed to extend the movement.
I'm thinking Diefenbaker and Trudeau might be examples of succesful party leaders who performed the attack-dog role themselves, but I've only read about Dief second-hand, and wasn't following Trudeau in-depth for most of his career.
(I believe Erik Neilsen had a fairly scabrous reputation throughout his career, so maybe he was doing that for Diefenbaker? And Chretien for Trudeau?)
Comments
You mean the Canadian ad weakens Trump's position?
FWIW, with Trump, it's kinda hard to discern a DIRECT connection between any one of his embarrassments or scandals, and any damage to his political fortunes. Not that there hasn't been damage to his political fortunes, but you can't really pinpoint an exact event that pushed things in that direction, or in what way. Everything just kinda melts into a miasmal mist of negative publicity for the guy.
(Not saying he's neccessarily down for the count, just that, to whatever extent he IS damaged by the controversies surrounding him, it tends to be in an amorphous fashion.)
I'll be interested to see how the opposing blocs line up on the SCOTUS for this decision, because tariffs are one of those issues that don't break down cleanly along the political spectrum, but possibly moreso on the jurisdictional one.
I have a theory about how at least one particular justice will vote, but I don't wanna drag this too far away from Canadian politics.
Fair enough. Everyone's pretty just helplessly improvising on acid when it comes to handling Trump. I will say that I think that, while negotiations may have been proceeding along in a fruitless and irritating fashion, the precise timing of the recent suspension was, in fact, closely connected with the ad. I doubt Trump's logic was "Hmm, I need an excuse to break off negotiations with Canada? What's that? They criticized me in an ad during the World Series? Well, how d'ya like them bananas. Okay, go with that, I guess."
"Jurisprudential", not "jurisdictional".
This should be on a brass plaque handed to anyone planning trade strategies.
And on that theme, Carney has now apologized for the World Series ad.
I assume Carney is not thinking in terms of the platonic forms of right and wrong. Probably closer to the mental template of a hostage-negotiator planning out how to address a ranting bozo who's waving a loaded gun around in a strip-mall parking lot.
That being said, I do remain pretty undecided about whether it was Ford or Carney who made the right calls in this whole political event. I suspect Carney is taking his cue more from the early-Trudeau/Trump relationship(see photo-ops with Ivanka at the Resolute Desk; Pierre referenced in 2017 SotU), whereas Ford for whatever reason thinks a more antagonistic, in-your-face approach will work.
Ford is vulnerable to the charge of cheap populist-postuting, given that he's not directly answerable for the fate of the negotiations, but I still can't say with pure certainty that his approach is unhelpful.
Yeah, I was speculating there might be a good cop/bad cop routine going on.
Though, assuming Carney's not lying, he HAS stated that he was shown the ad, but counseled against running it.
In other news Ford confirms that Carney asked him to pull the ads - although he seems to be rather whiny about the whole thing. David Eby in BC has apparently decided not to run they ads they came up with - discretion better part of valour or something like that.
I keep hoping that a Pepys sits hidden at the cabinet table, and reports to his diary the PM's post-cabinet-sherry comments....
But how would you remedy that without taking away legislatures' right to use Section 33? Do you still allow it, but put a cap on the number of times it can be used in a year, so it can't get to the point where it's rendering the Charter non-existent? And then how do you decide which legislatures get that right in a given year, and which don't?
It seems to me the more plausible thing would be to amend the constitution to make 33 moot. Not sure how you'd go about doing that, though.
In theory it would be possible to amend the Charter to remove section 33 but with the governments of all of Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Alberta invested in keeping section 33 in the Charter right now there’s no way that amendment would get past the amending formula (regardless of which standard applies which I don’t remember offhand).
The Attorney General of Canada has filed written submissions that say that section 33 cannot be used so as to effectively permanently amend the Charter but it’s hard to know what this really means at a practical level.
Those interested should follow these two cases, which will both be heard sometime in 2026:
https://www.scc-csc.ca/cases-dossiers/search-recherche/41231/ - in relation to Quebec secularism law
And
https://www.scc-csc.ca/cases-dossiers/search-recherche/41979/ - in relation to the Saskatchewan pronouns policy
I don’t know whether the Alberta legislation will be challenged now or whether they will hold off until the SCC weighs in. I have wondered whether the Alberta ban on gender-affirming care might be challenged on federalism grounds (on the basis that it is in substance criminal law where provinces have no jurisdiction) - section 33 does not apply in such contexts. But I don’t really know enough about the legislation or the Court’s federalism jurisprudence to have much of a sense of whether that kind of argument has any prospect of success.
I think Andrew Coyne was arguing for that move a coupla years back, in the event of 33 becoming a regular thing.
His implied point/counterpoint basically went...
PISSED OFF PREMIERS: Like it or not ya federal squirrel-heads, Section 33 is in the constitution!!
FEDS: Absolutely! And so is Disallowance.
Though I suppose if we are proposing that constitutional ad absurdums actually be put into practice, is there anything to stop the king from saying "I'm not happy about my vice-regals blocking invocation of the Notwithstanding Clause, so I think they need to be replaced with chaps who respect the will of the legislatures"?
Ahhh, thanks.
...the ruling party in Ottawa likes Province X but dislikes Province Y. So, when Province X tries to use 33 to over-rule a court decision, the feds allow them to do it, but when Province Y tries to do the same thing, the feds disallow it?
Because, honestly, I would see that as the most likely scenario, rather than the federal government pursuing a policy of either consistently allowing or consistently disallowing 33 based on overarching principles.
My take on section 33 is that while I’m not happy about the frequency and circumstances in which it is being invoked these days the sky is not genuinely falling… yet, at least. It’s a built in safety valve that avoids a head-on collision between the legislature and the courts if the legislature really cannot live with something the courts have done or that they think the courts are going to do. And as @sharkshooter says the override is only in effect for five years at a time. There’s a potential for constitutional structures to become genuinely unstuck if it is invoked routinely but it is also a feature that allows the overall structure to bend without breaking in times of stress.
The last time I heard disallowance discussed among constitutional academic talking heads, they argued that it was a spent provision. My own feeling is that this position was nonsense-- non-use does not constitute amendment by silence, otherwise we would have lots of laws ineffective by expiry. It got a bad rep from Victorian times when a federal government of one colour would cancel out laws of a provincial government of another colour. While t he ability of the federal government to do was likely the clear intent of the provision, political realities led federal governments to steer away from it-- I think that last time was when Alberta tried to print its own money. Eugene Forsey argued strongly for the federal power here in a still-entertaining book.
When I was once important many many years ago, I was in the room when Section 33 was being discussed "at a developmental stage." I do not think that any participants imagined that it would be used to head off challenges, but that it would only come into play after a court decision. Participants (I think that Lloyd Axworthy has said this) believed that province which used the clause would be trounced at the next provincial election. That's yet to happen.
Along with a law forcing newspapers to print Social Credit propaganda, both of which the LtGov predicted would be trashed by the courts in due order. Aberhart ended up locking him out of his official residence, I believe.
Ah, yes. The quaint liberal idealist's faith in the unshakable virtue of the average voter. I know someone who started predicting circa 2020 that the Conservative Party was headed for extinction, just as soon as Canadians realized that they were overrun with religious fanatics and big-oil shills.
Axworthy has always struck me as somebody a bit too inclined to assume that every reasonable person would necessarily agree with him about everything. (My late uncle worked for him for a brief period many many years ago and apparently couldn’t stand him - in fairness, I can readily imagine that the personalities involved were not remotely compatible.) Recently section 33 seems to be getting invoked by governments who think they can keep their key stakeholders happy without too much downside come election time. Which may be a question of failure of opposition parties to do their job in making themselves an electable alternative.
Re the CPC they would probably be in government now if they had any respect for where Canadian voters’ heads are. Obviously not extinct, and they may yet get themselves elected under their current (sarcasm alert) intrepid leader, but they lost the last election more than the Liberals won it.
I have no idea what the cash value of this is, and we won’t find out until and unless the feds decide to test the issue. But the SCC wouldn’t be saying this unless they thought it might have some practical import. (Hogg is the leading professional reference book on Canadian constitutional law - Hogg himself passed away in 2020 but the textbook itself remains very much in existence, edited by his former students.)
Yeah, but ever since at least the days of Mackenzie King, it's been more common for the conservative party to be outta power and the Liberals in power. So a run of lost elections for the Cons is not some unprecedented collapse, neccessarily heralding permanent destruction.
Since 2019, the Conservatives have held the Liberals to a minority, maintained their status as HMLO, and either upped their seat count or broke even in each election. So they're basically functioning as a relatively strong opposition party.
Yeah, we're in basic agreement. I should re-iterate that the person I was debating was arguing that the Conservatives would suffer an electoral wipeout that would be both complete and permanent, not simply that they would stumble around in the political wilderness for a decade or two, so that's the context for my original argument.
I will point out that Robert Stanfield and Joe Clark both epitomized the kinda centrist moderation that Canadians supposedly like in their politicians, but obviously had far less political success than Harper, who was widely seen as a right-wing ideologue, relative to the old PCs.
Well, FWIW, the supposedly competent Harper let the Liberals get away with a majority, whereas the supposed bozos Scheer and O'Toole managed, respectively, to knock them down to, and then maintain them at, minority status.
As for Poilievre, yeah, I think he's probably the most able Conservative leader since Harper, and would, as you say, be PM right now were it not for Trump's annexationist/tariff routine. Though I've wondered how many voters were making the basically non-ideological assessment that Poilievre wasn't up to the task, and, OTOH, how many viewed him as a right-wing ally of Trump's.
This continues to be Mr Polièvre's problem; more people dislike him than like him, and he is hard to sell to the people in the middle. While I'm happy to see him in Opposition, I must admit that Conservatives have put up better candidates in recent years (as well as some doozies who were elected) and we wouldn't be badly off if some of them had been chosen.
As a side note on disallowance, the SCC's recent judgement reads the underlying principle of federalism triumphed early. Many constitutional scholars contend that the federal power of disallowance has been abandoned Scholarly contention isn't definitive... It hasn't been tried for around 80 years now as courts have become arbiters of constitutionality, but I think it would have been a useful discipline for some of our premiers if it had not been so.
1) Bail law is federal re the Criminal Code.
2) Cash-only bail is income-punitive, which is why it was abandoned and its also a Charter issue.
3) The Supreme Court dealt with bail in 2017 and said detention and cash-bail should be the last resort, release is the presumption.
It's a provincial government having a lark at the Federal Government's expense but I wish they would use some other enue than the criminal justice system as their instrument.
I guess the extra-jurisdictional nonsense guarantees the bill a longer and more tortuous career in the court system, with attendant publicity. Whereas if he just changes the motto on the license plates to "KISS OUR ASS, CANADA!" it makes headlines for about a week, and that's about it.
Ford, as I mentioned earlier, is also the the guy who publically yearned for the election of judges, so he seems to have a thing for tough-talking but ultimately non-doable law-and-order postures.
A leader is supposed to be more diplomatic, more substantive and should rise above the fray. A leader is supposed to extend the movement.
I'm thinking Diefenbaker and Trudeau might be examples of succesful party leaders who performed the attack-dog role themselves, but I've only read about Dief second-hand, and wasn't following Trudeau in-depth for most of his career.
(I believe Erik Neilsen had a fairly scabrous reputation throughout his career, so maybe he was doing that for Diefenbaker? And Chretien for Trudeau?)