Several environmental groups have launched a constitutional challenge seeking to kill an Ontario law that allows cabinet to suspend other laws.
Wildlands League, Environmental Defence Canada, Friends of the Earth Canada and Democracy Watch allege Ontario’s special economic zone law wrongly abdicates power from the legislature and gives it to cabinet, thereby violating the Constitution.
Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government passed Bill 5, which included the special economic zone provision, last year.
The provision allows cabinet and the environment minister to suspend any and all provincial and municipal laws within such zones as they see fit.
If they can override any law for any reason then the laws are worthless. If government isn’t restricted by any laws you have fascism.
They can. That’s what the notwithstanding clause is for.
Incorrect. The notwithstanding clause is explicitly a temporary measure related to provisions 2 and 7-15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It’s not some magic “I don’t like this law” button.
What the Ontario government is trying to create is a way to bypass provincial and municipal laws by designating a piece of terrain a special zone.
To use an analogy, let’s say smoking bans came in as a Charter right rather than how they did. A controversial ban at the time, but widely reflected as a good move now. The right to clean air of something. Ontario could go “Hey, we grow a lot of tobacco, and we have a rich history of blowing smoke in each other’s faces at Tim Hortons. So we’re going to enact the not withstanding clause.” That buys Ontario a couple of years to figure out how to work the ban into its existing laws and culture.
This bill would be akin to Ontario saying “Okay, I know smoking is allowed everywhere except kindergartens and hospitals. And some municipalities have also banned smoking grade schools. So we’re proposing a special bill that will allow use to declare special smoking regions, which will allow people to smoke everywhere regardless of our, or cities, regulations”
Can you explain more about the temporary part?
Quebec’s language French-only/prominent language laws were enacted in the 90s. I believe they used the notwithstanding clause to prevent charter challenges. As far as I understand, those laws are still in effect twenty-ish years later. How does that work?
These have been renewed in cases, but generally laws end up evolving into compliance over time.
Has the nws clause ever been used for anything good?
I suspect that Quebec would have quit Canada decades ago if they hadn’t been able to implement their language laws.
I’d argue that keeping the country together is a good outcome. It’d be nice if it could have been achieved without making the Charter of Rights and Freedoms optional.