Martin gets tuff?
Via Galloping Beaver, I was thrilled to read this account at Tattered Sleeve of the Prime Minister on CBC with Peter Mansfield last night, justifying his notwithstanding bombshell:
He prefaced it by pointing out that sometimes majority governments are voted in by less than 40% of the voting public (as in 1997), and that in a country made up of minorities, the Charter is the only protection we have to thwart a bullying majority from enforcing its will against them.
...Connecting the dots, Martin went on to say that court challenges would likely follow [a private member's bill against abortion], and eventually, the Supreme Court would be asked to decide on the constitutionality of the legislation. (All this time - presumably years - the law of the land does not include a woman's right to choose, remember.) Assuming the SC eventually struck down the new law, the government could then use the Notwithstanding clause to overrule the Court (and the Charter) to stop women in Canada from "being able to choose" as he put it. And this could be done for many other rights protected by the Charter, of course.
Read the whole thing. I still don't buy the wisdom, and certainly not the political wisdom, in the promise to get rid of the notwithstanding clause (and it's probably impossible anyway). But now that it's out there, it's a very good thing to see Martin making his case and laying things on the line and being passionate about defending charter rights. (And it proves the press was wrong to sneer about how it had been left out of the platform.)
Martin's certainly right about one thing: We can't let the culture war just creep up on us. Even if the Cons can't outlaw abortion (and they can't, not right now, without bringing hell down on their heads), they can put it squarely on the table where it will stir up all sorts of emotions that aren't thankfully a big part of our politics right now. (Remember the relative discretion with which the Liberals put through the gay marriage bill, allowing for debate and the concerns of religious institutions but not letting the hatemongers run wild on the floor of Parliament for months on end.) The right gets nowhere by being similarly discreet. Just look how well culture warring has worked for rightwingers down south. Can the Tories really resist? Will enough of them want to? I don't want to find out.
He prefaced it by pointing out that sometimes majority governments are voted in by less than 40% of the voting public (as in 1997), and that in a country made up of minorities, the Charter is the only protection we have to thwart a bullying majority from enforcing its will against them.
...Connecting the dots, Martin went on to say that court challenges would likely follow [a private member's bill against abortion], and eventually, the Supreme Court would be asked to decide on the constitutionality of the legislation. (All this time - presumably years - the law of the land does not include a woman's right to choose, remember.) Assuming the SC eventually struck down the new law, the government could then use the Notwithstanding clause to overrule the Court (and the Charter) to stop women in Canada from "being able to choose" as he put it. And this could be done for many other rights protected by the Charter, of course.
Read the whole thing. I still don't buy the wisdom, and certainly not the political wisdom, in the promise to get rid of the notwithstanding clause (and it's probably impossible anyway). But now that it's out there, it's a very good thing to see Martin making his case and laying things on the line and being passionate about defending charter rights. (And it proves the press was wrong to sneer about how it had been left out of the platform.)
Martin's certainly right about one thing: We can't let the culture war just creep up on us. Even if the Cons can't outlaw abortion (and they can't, not right now, without bringing hell down on their heads), they can put it squarely on the table where it will stir up all sorts of emotions that aren't thankfully a big part of our politics right now. (Remember the relative discretion with which the Liberals put through the gay marriage bill, allowing for debate and the concerns of religious institutions but not letting the hatemongers run wild on the floor of Parliament for months on end.) The right gets nowhere by being similarly discreet. Just look how well culture warring has worked for rightwingers down south. Can the Tories really resist? Will enough of them want to? I don't want to find out.
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