notwithstanding clause

Eight in 10 Canadians back a woman's right to an abortion and two in three don't want the notwithstanding clause used to restrict access to abortions, a new poll suggests.

The notwithstanding clause should only be used as a measure of last resort, Canada's justice minister said on Tuesday, after Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre suggested he wouldn't hesitate to wield it to enact tougher criminal laws.

Deron Kuski told court children could be exposed to “potential harm” if they socially transition without parental consent.

A legal challenge to Saskatchewan's new law requiring parental consent if children under 16 want to change their names or pronouns at school is back in court this week. New Brunswick enacted a similar measure last year, and other provinces are looking at doing the same.

Former Saskatchewan human rights commissioner Heather Kuttai says she spoke with her son before she decided to resign on Monday over the province’s proposed pronoun legislation.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe is ready to use the notwithstanding clause to protect a new rule requiring parental permission for transgender and nonbinary students to use different names or pronouns at school.

The federal Conservatives joined the Bloc Québécois on Monday, February 13, 2023, to try and send a message to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that it is up to the provinces to decide how to use the notwithstanding clause.

It was a busy day at Queen’s Park on Monday, with education workers getting back their right to strike and Ontario’s government projecting a budget deficit that critics warn could be used to avoid paying them and other public sector workers a living wage.

The Ford government tried to legislate away Ontario workers’ bargaining rights last week. Instead, it likely needs to sweeten the deal it’s proposing to emboldened education workers.

In the space of nine days, Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government drew up, imposed and promised to withdraw a law that invoked the Charter of Rights and Freedoms’ notwithstanding clause to block any opposition to its enforced four-year pay offer to Canadian Union of Public Employees members.

After leading the Wildrose Party to defeat in a 2012 Alberta election and betraying her own caucus by crossing the floor to the governing Progressive Conservatives in 2014, Danielle Smith is taking one last kick at the can with her bid to become leader of the United Conservative Party.

When federal Justice Minister David Lametti reacted last week to the adoption of Quebec's language law reform, he took aim at the provincial government's proactive use of the notwithstanding clause to shield the law from constitutional challenges.

The federal government will join a legal challenge to Quebec's religious symbols law if it reaches the country's highest court, Justice Minister David Lametti said on Wednesday, May 25, 2022.

Quebec Premier François Legault sought to reassure anglophones that his government's language law reform, adopted on Tuesday, May 24, 2022, won't prevent people from accessing health care in English.

By normalizing the use of an extraordinary power like the notwithstanding clause, Ontario's Doug Ford government is setting the stage for future suspensions of charter rights by provincial legislatures, writes columnist Max Fawcett.