Five premiers say Ottawa’s recent call for limits on the notwithstanding clause amounts to a “complete disavowal” of the bargain that spawned the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The Constitution’s notwithstanding clause gives provincial legislatures or Parliament the ability to pass legislation that effectively overrides provisions of the Charter, though only for a five-year period.
In a filing to the Supreme Court of Canada in a case on Quebec’s secularism law, Ottawa argues the constitutional limits on the notwithstanding clause preclude it from being used to distort or wipe out the rights and freedoms guaranteed by the Charter.
In a letter sent today to Prime Minister Mark Carney, the premiers of Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia call on the federal government to reconsider its approach “and withdraw its written legal argument immediately.”
The letter says the federal argument seeks to advance new limits on the ability of democratically elected legislatures to use the notwithstanding clause.
It says these arguments threaten national unity by seeking to undermine the sovereignty of provincial legislatures.