Finally the cat is out of the bag. Justin Trudeau and his Attorney General David Lametti confirmed the inevitable. If Bill 21 ends up in the Supreme Court (SC), the federal government will not hesitate to oppose it.
The reason ? According to David Lametti, the issue is bound to become national once CS takes it into its own hands. In force. As for Law 96, which aims to modernize Law 101, he prefers to await its application on the ground.
However, the real bone in the soup lies elsewhere. It lurks in the Legault government’s “preventive” recourse to the exception clause in the Canadian and Quebec Charters of Rights and Freedoms.
This remedy allows her to exempt her Laws 21 and 96 from any legal challenge based on certain fundamental rights recognized in the two charters. Including freedom of religion, conscience and expression.
So this controversial clause gives legislators the last word on a law – and not the courts. Hence Justice Secretary Simon Jolin-Barrette, who renamed it the “parliamentary sovereignty clause”.
François Legault’s anger was immediate. He accuses Mr. Trudeau of “disrespecting the majority of Quebecers” in favor of Bill 21. For Mr Legault, however, it’s a godsend.
A confrontation with Mr. Trudeau on the basis of identity will further cement his image as a nationalist leader en route to a second election victory.
Forced against the federal government to back Mr Legault, the already weakened opposition parties are even trapped.
Trudeau and Legault have the edge
Mr. Trudeau is equally successful among his Pan-Canadian constituency, including an Anglo-Quebec community strongly opposed to Bills 21 and 96.
He will finally be able to calm the winds of anger that have been rising for months against his reluctance to confront François Legault on Law 21, his forthcoming Law 96 and in particular his repeated recourse to the devaluation clause.
This anger was all the more expressed because Justin Trudeau is the son of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, himself the father of Canada’s Charter of Rights, ratified in 1982 without the signature of the National Assembly.
For or against Acts 21 and 96, however, the fact remains that the variance clause, controversial as it is, is fully constitutional. This does not prevent them from often being seen as an instrument of political repression.
Even Lucien Bouchard…
In 1996, even former PQ Premier Lucien Bouchard said he couldn’t look in the mirror when he had to invoke it to protect commercial signage in French.
Twenty-six years later we find ourselves in the same debate again. This time at the heart of the Trudeau-Legault Showdown. Because the whatever clause is part of Canada’s Charter of Rights, once Bill 21 is before the Supreme Court, the federal government will instead seek to invalidate or limit its “preventive” legal recourse.
According to David Lametti, this clause should never be the “first word” of a legislature, but its “last” – once “democratic dialogue” and legal challenges have been exhausted.
In the longer term, the real battle of attrition will indeed be fought over the right of all provinces, and not just Quebec, to invoke it “preventively”.
In the short term, the October 3 elections will give François Legault an opportunity to outshine his opponents even further.
