Juno News - Jobs VANISH in Alberta while Carney visits Europe (again)

00:00:00.000 welcome to the candace malcolm show my name is chris sims i'm the alberta director for the

00:00:09.600 canadian taxpayers federation thank you so much for making us a part of your day if you haven't

00:00:14.420 done so yet be sure to like this video subscribe to the channel and most importantly share it with

00:00:20.540 your friends who need to know we've got an amazing show for you we have a prize fighter constitutional

00:00:27.540 lawyer coming up in a moment uh joanna baron she's the executive director of the canadian

00:00:33.320 constitution foundation for folks who don't know what that group is they were one of the key groups

00:00:38.860 who had that huge win at the federal court level where the justice there declared that it was

00:00:45.220 unconstitutional for prime minister justin trudeau to invoke the emergencies act remember back when

00:00:51.420 people had their bank accounts frozen that was not a good time so joanna baron is one of the prize

00:00:56.600 fighters at the ccf but we're going to be speaking with her about the notwithstanding clause and why

00:01:02.260 it really matters including to folks here in alberta and across the rest of the country we're going to

00:01:08.080 do that in a second but first there's a few things that are on the front burner right now that i had

00:01:13.120 to flag especially for viewers of this show so we know folks who are logging on to juno news we know

00:01:19.860 folks who appreciate independent news they like keeping up on top of these issues so a few things are

00:01:25.560 happening one we're seeing a lot of jobs being lost in the energy sector so there were some bad

00:01:33.140 headlines going around the last few days people leaving offices with boxes in their hands in

00:01:38.540 calgary that's always a terrible thing to see okay so we're having some trouble in the energy sector

00:01:44.560 and we know that the global energy issue is a big complicated thing okay it's a huge machine

00:01:50.800 but it sure doesn't help here in canada when we still have bill c69 the no more pipelines law

00:01:59.400 we have the energy cap on alberta energy it's a production cap ottawa will try to say oh it's an

00:02:06.060 emissions cap but the way they've structured it is impossible so it's a production cap that is

00:02:11.600 something that the parliamentary budget officer has said will blow billions and billions of dollars

00:02:17.980 out of our economy just that one production cap we still have the tanker ban off of the west coast

00:02:24.620 we still have all of these massive problems okay where ottawa is choking alberta we're hearing a lot

00:02:33.660 of language and a lot of stuff and words coming out of ottawa but i haven't seen any of these laws get

00:02:40.800 repealed so if we are choking off the energy sector in alberta and this is really key here

00:02:47.680 if international investors if super smart rich people that run these big companies okay things

00:02:54.320 like oil and gas companies right if they're looking around for a place to park their money and all they

00:02:59.680 see are a bunch of red lights and no no no and stop stop stop coming from canada they have a lot of

00:03:05.700 other places to invest their money and the government in ottawa has created this climate

00:03:12.100 this climate of no happening here across canada and guess what if we don't have full pipeline capacity

00:03:21.460 if we are not using our natural resources to the best of our ability we all suffer taxpayers suffer

00:03:29.140 there was an estimate that blew my mind a little while ago it said since 2015 so since prime minister

00:03:35.620 justin trudeau was elected and this current government came into power we've lost out on more

00:03:41.300 than 600 billion dollars 600 billion dollars because we aren't actually using our natural resources

00:03:51.620 because we keep getting a whole bunch of no coming from ottawa so something's got to give okay we're

00:03:58.900 i'm sensing some trouble in the temple here in alberta and the reason why i say that is is if we're

00:04:04.580 having major problems here if our jobs numbers aren't looking good if we're seeing real a lot of

00:04:09.620 trouble in the energy industry we're seeing companies pulling their money out of this area

00:04:14.180 that cascades across the rest of canada because alberta is the economic engine of canada and we all

00:04:21.460 don't want to suffer because alberta is suffering so something's got to change here so carney

00:04:28.100 unfortunately carney mark carney the current prime minister he's spending a lot of time in europe

00:04:36.340 okay i'm gonna pull up a clip here really quick in a second here but it's from the same globalist

00:04:42.580 meeting they were having on stage where he was chit-chatting with the president of the united kingdom

00:04:48.260 keir starmer okay sorry pardon me prime minister of the uk keir starmer and that's where he praised the

00:04:54.260 carbon tax saying it was a textbook good policy but opposition leader pierre paulio pulled up in

00:05:00.740 a different clip and i wanted to play it here for you for a very specific reason okay again to outline

00:05:06.740 we've got a huge problem with energy companies getting chilly here in canada and getting worried

00:05:13.060 that they won't actually be able to get their product to market we've got a huge problem we're

00:05:17.460 not using our natural resources properly which is a huge cost to taxpayers as we've described we've

00:05:24.260 got a big issue with our enormous trading partner right to ourself in a direct trade fight now like

00:05:32.820 gloves are off you probably see what happened to the film industry announcement the other day

00:05:36.820 like things aren't good okay we have ottawa which seems to not be doing too much to try to actually get

00:05:44.660 a new trade deal signed with the white house they seem to be more interested in scoring cheap partisan

00:05:50.740 points on mainstream government-funded tv which is completely pointless and all it's doing is hurting

00:05:56.420 normal working people on both sides of the border so we have all of these massive issues going on here

00:06:02.020 at home in canada something that prime minister mark carney with all of his brains needs to apply

00:06:06.900 himself to but here he is in europe and they basically asked him how are things going in canada what

00:06:13.060 things have changed listen to this our election and our policy was was first and foremost it was fight

00:06:21.620 fight the tariffs you know have a reaction we had one of the strongest reactions protect protect our

00:06:26.580 workers so there were many ways we were doing that but one of the things is we're taking all of the tariff

00:06:31.940 revenue putting it back into workers helping workers retain their jobs but also retrain protect our

00:06:38.500 communities um against crime but the core pardon me the core message was built um pardon me uh and it

00:06:47.060 was to build and build in a positive way you need so there we go he just keeps going on and on like this

00:06:55.380 like he goes on for about three minutes and i think the term word salad is overused a little bit

00:07:02.900 but he just keeps talking it's like somebody turned on the microphone and he just had to keep filling

00:07:09.700 space because he doesn't actually say anything substantive it takes him a few more questions

00:07:15.300 into this on stage session to even say kind of accidentally oh yeah carbon taxes were textbook good

00:07:21.620 policy this is the issue we've got a serious problem here in canada we have about a dozen really

00:07:29.300 serious problems a lot of them are economic in nature and they're really hurting taxpayers so

00:07:37.220 prime minister mark carney needs to really dig in and focus and fix all these things he can't just

00:07:43.060 keep on saying nice words to placate the premiers okay because really time's up when we start seeing

00:07:50.580 moves that's what's happening in calgary right now with that many people losing their jobs and people

00:07:54.820 getting shaky about it time's up they have got to scrap bill c69 in a more pipelines law they've got

00:08:01.460 to get rid of the tanker ban they've got to get rid of the energy cap they have got to scrap every

00:08:08.100 single iota of a plan for an industrial carbon tax you might have seen that we just handed like tons of

00:08:16.180 taxpayers money to a steel company here in canada that's not going to help that's just a band-aid

00:08:22.740 solution one of the main reasons that steel companies are packing up and leaving and losing

00:08:28.100 money here in canada is because a we already have an industrial carbon tax and b they know that carney

00:08:35.460 is going to hammer them with a huge new hidden industrial carbon tax it's going to be ready anytime

00:08:42.660 now so the answer isn't choking off all of our industries and choking off all of our natural resources

00:08:49.620 sectors and then throwing taxpayers money on it that we don't have because we're 1.2 trillion dollars

00:08:55.460 in debt that is not the answer the answer is to get government out of the way and to make this machine

00:09:00.900 run smoothly i also wanted to point out something really quick here in alberta because again something

00:09:05.940 that happens in alberta spreads across the rest of canada the teachers who work in the government

00:09:11.780 funded schools here in alberta have decided to go on strike it was like a 90 strike vote last night so

00:09:20.420 this means that very soon thousands of students i think it's something crazy like 800 000 students here

00:09:26.820 in alberta are going to be locked out of school i will point out that a lot of these students who are

00:09:33.140 in school right now were also locked out of school a few years ago for a long time and it took a big toll on

00:09:39.860 them so this should have been avoided as much as humanly possible what's frustrating here is that

00:09:47.140 the government of alberta was offering these teachers a pay raise they were offering them 12

00:09:53.460 over the next four years so that's three percent per year and they were also offering them to move

00:09:59.380 up a grid or consolidate their pay grid the answer was they would get even more money the vast majority

00:10:05.540 of them they were also promising to hire 3 000 new teachers plus 1500 new classroom assistants so that

00:10:14.820 was a pretty big offer and even the cbc was reporting that if they had accepted this contract

00:10:22.980 that teachers in alberta would be the highest paid teachers in all of western canada after taxes and i

00:10:31.140 include that because uh we're way more affordable comparatively speaking here in alberta than it is

00:10:37.940 in british columbia thank you very much so alberta premier daniel smith she's got a lot on her plate

00:10:44.580 but she has got to bring an end to this teacher strike as quickly as possible and here's an idea for

00:10:50.100 her back in 2014 the government of british columbia did something really smart they took the money that

00:10:57.860 would have been paid to striking teachers so they were off the job so they weren't getting that money

00:11:03.380 take that money give it to parents distribute it all amongst alberta parents here you go guys

00:11:10.260 because now thousands of parents are left in the lurch thousands of parents are scrambling to find

00:11:15.700 child care thousands of parents are wondering what to do with their kids during the day while they have

00:11:19.940 to go to work so alberta premier daniel smith should take a page out of british columbia's recent history

00:11:25.700 book hand that money that was otherwise going to be paid to the striking teachers and give it to

00:11:31.300 alberta parents so lots to do here in alberta now before we get to what is now being described as a

00:11:37.460 potential constitutional crisis let's hear from our sponsor a quick word from our sponsors mackamy

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00:12:45.540 candismalcolm.com slash mackamy that's m-a-k-a-m-i so we have a lot on our plate both provincially and

00:12:55.540 federally but there's something that's taking a lot of lawyers by surprise and it really matters because

00:13:02.980 it could affect our ability across different provinces to be able to stand up to courts and

00:13:10.260 in particular in alberta's case you know how alberta takes the government to court to get them to rule

00:13:16.500 on things like carbon taxes and pipelines and uses of natural resources and all of those important

00:13:23.140 things and we get rulings this way in that and we get ottawa to listen and sometimes not

00:13:29.620 if suddenly the courts are the ones that have the final say despite the notwithstanding clause

00:13:37.380 that could be a really big deal how big of a deal let's find out joining me now is joanna barron she 1.00

00:13:44.180 is the executive director of the canadian constitution foundation and bear with me for a second joanna i

00:13:49.700 always introduce folks from your team this way they're one of the key groups that got that win at

00:13:55.220 the federal court level that ruled that it was wrong for prime minister justin trudeau to invoke the

00:14:02.100 emergencies act folks might remember the huge trucker protest the freedom convoy all that stuff

00:14:08.340 it was her team and a few other people that went to the mat and got that win at the federal court

00:14:14.260 level that was a huge win and so sorry joanna that's how i introduced christine van gein like before

00:14:20.260 her name so hopefully to be upheld by the federal court of appeal soon we'll hear that decision at

00:14:26.180 any day and we will go all the way to the supreme court no matter what awesome all right well thank

00:14:31.060 you so much for joining us i know you're a super busy lady but you had a great piece in the hub and

00:14:37.140 we're going to pull up a screenshot of it here and it's where you do a really good explainer of the

00:14:42.740 notwithstanding clause now this is making a lot of news in relation to quebec with some of its i believe

00:14:50.260 it's their religious uh symbols issue um but you described it as a safety valve the notwithstanding

00:14:57.620 clause as a safety valve can you just explain to our audience exactly what the notwithstanding

00:15:02.980 clause is how long have we had it for and what is its purpose yeah so the notwithstanding clause was

00:15:08.900 the deliberate democratic compromise arrived at in the original negotiations leading up to

00:15:15.060 to the adoption of the charter in 1982 and we know in particular the prairie premiers namely

00:15:21.460 alan blakely and peter lockheed would not have agreed to the adoption of the charter without section 33

00:15:26.740 now what does section 33 do it allows legislatures to adopt legislation notwithstanding the charter

00:15:33.460 that doesn't purely mean that they're overriding rights it means that they're signaling we have a

00:15:39.140 different interpretation about the requirements of charter rights than we think judges are going to

00:15:44.180 have we have different legislative priorities and so it allows us to wield that judgment and sort of

00:15:50.980 it effectuates this very careful balance between the power of judges and legislatures which everybody

00:15:56.580 understood the charter was going to give much more judges to power sorry power to judges judges are

00:16:02.980 unelected they are not accountable to constituencies they're not connected to the realities of governing

00:16:08.820 there's no question that governments overreach all the time we see that as well and so the notwithstanding

00:16:14.900 clause has important limitations it has to be renewed every five years it has to be publicly

00:16:20.660 pronounced and so uh the public has the opportunity to vote governments out if they don't like what

00:16:27.860 they've done with the notwithstanding clause so it's certainly not a get out of jail free card

00:16:32.820 excellent description so if i may so on the political side of things and the elected government

00:16:38.820 right we have the ability obviously to vote for our members of parliament federally so we're able to

00:16:44.740 hold those individuals to account that way here in the province of alberta we can vote for our members

00:16:50.020 of the legislature legislative assembly and we also have recall legislation here in alberta so it kind

00:16:56.020 of warms my heart that it was prairie premiers that were insisting on having this form of a safety bell

00:17:02.100 and then would you then is it fair to describe this as a balancing mechanism between the courts and the

00:17:08.900 commons yeah absolutely and it's also a recognition that canada has a westminster style

00:17:15.380 parliamentary democracy and in westminster style parliamentary democracies parliament is supreme

00:17:21.780 parliament decides on the contour and shapes of rights and so canada kind of came into more of a

00:17:26.980 hybrid system with this defined bill of rights but section 33 was really you know a release valve as

00:17:34.260 you mentioned at the beginning to recognize that there are some times when there's going to be

00:17:38.580 disagreements between judges and courts and will give this override mechanism again that is limited and needs

00:17:44.980 to be you know held in check by the public it acknowledges just that judges can get it wrong

00:17:51.380 right sure they're they're human they they can get it wrong they have takes on things and sometimes

00:17:57.300 they can get it wrong and i find this distinction really interesting uh because in the united states

00:18:02.180 in different various areas there's more of um an elected feel to it right so judges in some jurisdictions

00:18:09.140 can be elected by the people they have to stand for election again they're much more it's more of a

00:18:14.260 transactional or direct contact i find than it is up here in canada so why then is this making more

00:18:21.380 news i've noticed especially in the eastern based media that this is popping up a lot particularly in

00:18:28.020 regards to quebec what is the current federal government trying to do when it comes to the not

00:18:33.780 withstanding clause so i would say that this is to me the biggest shock so far of the mark carney

00:18:39.220 government in general he's tried to govern quite from the center and with a steady hand the federal

00:18:45.140 government filed its factum last week in this big quebec case about religious symbols but it's also

00:18:50.340 more fundamentally about how does section 33 work once a government invokes section 33 can judges still

00:18:57.220 decide whether the law itself was constitutional or unconstitutional that's called issuing a moot

00:19:02.500 declaration the carney government filed a factum that really shocked the legal community by asking

00:19:08.500 the supreme court to give expanded powers to the courts once the government invokes section 33 not

00:19:15.700 just whether the formal requirements were met but basically whether the government crossed the line

00:19:22.660 you know caused what they call irreparable damage or invoked it for too long of a period essentially for

00:19:28.900 the courts to be the final arbiters of whether section 33 was properly invoked when in fact anybody who

00:19:35.940 understands the history of charter negotiations knows that the whole purpose of section 33 was to

00:19:42.820 give the legislature a free hand as it were and take something out of the purview of courts so then

00:19:51.060 going along that line of thinking say that this happened could you paint us a picture of a scenario that

00:19:57.060 could take place in that situation like yeah so let's say a uh a government it could be a provincial

00:20:03.060 government it could be the federal government um so for example uh one high profile example was doug

00:20:09.380 ford invoked the notwithstanding clause about five years ago um in a proposal to dramatically reduce the

00:20:14.580 number of wards in toronto city this was part of a view that toronto city council was overstaffed bogged

00:20:21.220 down in bureaucratic nonsense um and he invoked the notwithstanding clause now it turned out the court said that

00:20:26.980 he could do it anyways it wasn't unconstitutional but he was saying you know this this is a legislative

00:20:33.620 priority it was part of my mandate um and with this new uh proposed framework that the federal

00:20:40.340 government is suggesting the courts could say uh we think that this is an inappropriate move uh we think

00:20:47.860 that this could cause you know irreparable harm this couldn't be unwound so we're gonna override this and

00:20:54.260 say that you can't do it so it basically gives judges the veto now sorry to ask a amateur question

00:21:02.980 is there an extra like i'm picturing like the piling up of hands of kids and they're trying to compete

00:21:08.260 is there an extra hand then that ford could have done in that situation or if the court say in this

00:21:13.700 imagined scenario say this goes through in the future um what would happen then if the court says yeah you

00:21:19.380 can't do this does that just mean the wards would have stayed the same number and tough cookies well

00:21:24.180 this is why you may have heard this phrase a lot of the last week or 10 days or so constitutional crisis

00:21:30.900 yeah could create a constitutional crisis because yeah what if then you just have a game of chicken

00:21:36.500 where doug ford says no i disagree i'm not doing this and the court says you have to do this we have the

00:21:42.180 final final say does doug ford go ahead with something that is technically under the you know

00:21:48.740 the jurisprudence of the supreme court of canada unconstitutional or does he give in that that's

00:21:54.420 where the constitutional crisis is going to come up and we've already heard i was looking last night at

00:21:59.300 the intervener factums manitoba alberta saskatchewan they are vehemently opposed to this proposal on the

00:22:05.780 part of the federal government so it actually is a threat to national unity um because as you know

00:22:11.380 there are some tensions between the provinces and the feds right now and the feds are really doing

00:22:15.620 a power grab here yeah like this is my first take on this is wow this isn't helping like no this is

00:22:23.060 making it worse right exactly read the room um if i can keep you for a couple of more minutes i just

00:22:30.340 kind of want to go along the same line of thinking i'm going to try to put this nicely um the average

00:22:35.700 working person uh has got a lot of questions right now when it comes to judges so there are some

00:22:41.540 sentencing rulings that are coming out at like the lower court level where they're like yeah that

00:22:45.780 doesn't make any sense um it doesn't pass the smell test i don't i don't agree with this and so i'm

00:22:52.260 i'm concerned here that this could further distance the common person as in our representatives in the

00:22:59.380 house of commons from the judiciary from the judges like it seems that they clearly are are not really

00:23:05.860 reading the room here are you concerned that this could cause a further disconnect and a level of

00:23:11.940 distrust between the people our big population and the the small group of people who happen to be

00:23:17.940 judges in this country oh yeah exactly i i'm definitely concerned about it because part of 0.86

00:23:23.060 section 33's great wisdom is that it allowed room for legislative disagreement with judicial rulings for

00:23:31.460 the legislature to say you know we we've we've heard your opinion and we're going to do this and

00:23:36.660 we we carry the consequences if the people want to vote us out in five years because they disagree

00:23:43.140 then we'll wear this but you're a judge you're cloistered you know you went to law school you're

00:23:47.780 very smart but you're not necessarily in touch with the realities of governing um and so it's like

00:23:53.860 there's you know different types of wisdom and the great you know strength of section 33 it is

00:23:58.740 allows for those multiple inputs the last thing i'll say uh that's been brought up a lot is that

00:24:04.500 giving judges even more power as this would propose to do um will just further politicize 0.76

00:24:10.580 the judiciary you know we've we've seen how this has happened in the united states where everybody

00:24:15.620 understands that supreme court judges have a partisan vote and so nobody really looks at them

00:24:22.100 anymore as neutral arbiters everybody understands that one of the big games of you know bringing in a

00:24:26.980 republican or democratic president is hopefully they get to stack some supreme court judges for 0.77

00:24:32.980 the most part our judiciary um has avoided that kind of rank partisanship but the more that we give

00:24:39.940 judges a final veto power over fundamental questions like euthanasia sex work uh safe injection sites all of

00:24:47.700 these fundamental issues of modern life now you know the um trans and preferred pronouns issue is coming up

00:24:54.500 and maybe we'll talk about that in a moment these things you know courts courts can weigh in on but

00:25:00.100 now um if they were if the court were to accept the supreme court were to accept the federal government's

00:25:05.540 proposal they would have the final say i wanted to pick up on that because i think that is something

00:25:11.060 that premier daniel smith has indicated that she would be willing to use the notwithstanding clause

00:25:16.340 about correct yes so i think it was about two weeks ago premier smith proposed using the notwithstanding

00:25:22.500 clause to shield upcoming legislation on gender identity in schools from charter challenges so

00:25:28.900 the legislation would ban children under 15 from changing their name or pronouns at school without

00:25:34.820 parental consent it would also restrict hormone therapy for trans youth under a certain age and again

00:25:41.540 there have been a number of controversial and varying decisions popping up across the country about these

00:25:47.620 various policies and their constitutionality clearly it is something where there is gray area we can say

00:25:54.500 at the very least and it would be hubristic to assume that judges are some philosopher king that can

00:26:01.140 give not just the right answer but the right answer for every part of this vast and very diverse country

00:26:08.020 i find having moved to alberta that their ability to have direct democracy to have referendums to have

00:26:14.740 recall legislation even at the school board level at the city level it really kind of opens up free

00:26:21.060 speech it does it really kind of opens up accountability i've just noticed it that politicians

00:26:26.900 even in the edmonton legislature they're way quicker to respond and i can't help but think that

00:26:32.980 that one of the reasons for that is because we have these mechanisms we have these checks and balances

00:26:38.980 and if we are electing people to the legislature in edmonton to speak for us and represent us

00:26:43.860 and they wind up hitting loggerheads with with courts you can see why the mechanism like the

00:26:49.380 notwithstanding clause would be so important um i i wanted to if we're if we're is there anything else

00:26:55.940 i haven't asked you that you think is critical at this stage for people to understand oh yes why now

00:27:02.420 why is the federal government doing this now like do we know that's the million dollar question we

00:27:09.300 don't know i can tell you some of the rampant speculation i've heard uh one speculation i heard

00:27:14.900 is that ottawa is setting up a showdown between itself um and alberta actually and is going to set

00:27:22.740 itself as the sort of protector of rights and alberta um as the villain that's one theory another theory 1.00

00:27:28.660 that i've heard um is that this was basically a lawyer's branch uh you know brainchild it could have

00:27:35.300 been david lametti who was dean of mcgill law very academic lawyer obviously recently left pmo this

00:27:42.100 was just a hobby horse of his um there's no question that lawyers like to bring in tests and frameworks

00:27:48.900 and so this was really just a lawyer's idea and the federal government ran with it um it could be also

00:27:55.540 that carney is looking to wedge himself with pierre polyev who has said very openly that if he were to be

00:28:01.780 prime minister he would invoke the notwithstanding clause on the federal level for the very first

00:28:06.420 time in relation to mandatory minimum sentences and violent criminals getting out on bail easily

00:28:13.780 but nobody knows for sure chris so lastly on this issue with alberta could this then be used say you

00:28:21.460 know apart from the social issues as they're often described say that we wanted to strike down c69

00:28:29.060 or say we wanted to get rid of the energy cap or strike down the tanker ban off the west coast

00:28:34.500 and say that the federal government said okay fine and agreed with us there would be a miracle

00:28:39.300 and we would be able to actually get our energy out to market in this situation um say the supreme

00:28:46.260 court or a level of court says you know what i don't think so because for whatever reason

00:28:50.900 name it um you know national unity or environmental blah blah blah and in that situation the prime minister of

00:28:56.740 the government in ottawa says notwithstanding your decision and opinion on this we're going ahead

00:29:02.260 with it anyway in this scenario if this goes through then would the supreme court have the

00:29:07.780 final say and be able to just squash it yeah absolutely the clear implication is that ottawa is

00:29:13.700 proposing a transfer of power the federal government is proposing a transfer of power to the courts to

00:29:19.620 have the ultimate reviewing say it says particularly if the courts find that an invocation of the not

00:29:25.300 withstanding clause would cause what they call irreparable harm which you could easily see in the

00:29:29.780 context or you could easily see a lawyer making this argument in the context you bring up um about

00:29:35.300 energy pipelines and you know arguments around environmental impact they would have the final

00:29:40.260 word and again that's where the constitutional crisis would come in um because it would come down

00:29:44.820 to basically a battle of wills would alberta just plow ahead with it even though it's officially 1.00

00:29:50.740 unconstitutional or at that point you just have to say i have we have to play by the rules and this

00:29:56.500 is why this is so poorly thought out wow okay where do we go from here what's the next thing that

00:30:02.900 you're waiting for on this issue well we've been reviewing there are 60 interveners in this in this

00:30:08.580 upcoming appeal at the supreme court of canada the canadian constitution foundation is one of them

00:30:13.620 um we have been clear um that we we do not support uh this great expansion of the judicial role um and

00:30:22.500 the hearing will be i imagine at some point this winter and we'll see what the supreme court says

00:30:28.100 um it would be very radical for the supreme court to go along with this but i can tell you having

00:30:32.820 reviewed some of the 60 factums that a majority of the interveners are asking for courts to have an

00:30:39.700 enhanced role in supervising the invocation of notwithstanding clause the majority of the

00:30:44.740 provinces are opposed to it and they tend to have a bit like more weight right the court understands

00:30:49.860 that they're more important than niche interest groups like you know the the association for for

00:30:56.900 for criminal lawyers and you know there's a million of these groups so the provinces will be

00:31:01.140 heard and their concerns will be taken very very seriously um but nobody knows what this current

00:31:06.580 supreme court will do unfortunately is it still open for interveners for people to declare themselves

00:31:12.980 to be interveners it's closed okay no okay i just wanted to see if there's a chance to put more hands

00:31:17.060 on deck in that situation okay briefly um i know that i think you guys are doing more of a deep dive

00:31:22.660 analysis on this because of course it's important to do your homework but i'm seeing some concerning uh

00:31:27.860 posts coming from members of parliament and i think they're earnestly concerned about this

00:31:32.100 they're saying effectively that some of the free speech or free expression issues that we were

00:31:37.540 dealing with a few years ago um i think it's online harms or trying to limit what people can

00:31:42.660 see and say online that it's coming back to the house of commons i saw a post from a member of parliament

00:31:49.300 who is highlighting elements of this saying that this could prevent you from expressing yourself in

00:31:54.580 canada where are we with that are you guys taking a look at that so we had actually hoped that

00:32:00.340 uh the carny government would walk it back entirely and it looked like at the end of the last

00:32:04.580 parliamentary session that huge swaths of that bill were completely dead um certainly the parts

00:32:10.980 that did things like give possible life sentences for future pre-crime um but we did see the announcement

00:32:17.540 last week that stephen gilbeau who it seems incredible to me um has preserved his place in

00:32:23.060 government would like to bring back a version of this bill um so we're watching that very carefully

00:32:27.460 okay um i'm glad you're watching that very carefully and based on our experience with

00:32:33.300 stephen gilbeau with pipelines and carbon taxes in that little thing they tried slipping through in

00:32:39.300 that study where they were thinking about imposing a truck tax and they dared say that we were peddling

00:32:44.420 disinformation yeah that guy's an ideological zealot and we have to keep a very close eye on him the

00:32:51.220 idea that he could be in charge of free speech laws like as a tax as a tax fighter that that makes me

00:32:59.220 very nervous uh joanna barron uh where can we find your work where can people support the canadian

00:33:04.820 constitution foundation so we're at the ccf.ca we have free courses you'll find all of our news

00:33:10.820 releases you can sign up for our weekly freedom update we also co-host along with my colleagues josh and

00:33:16.020 christine a weekly podcast called not reserving judgment where you can get in 30 to 45 minutes

00:33:21.780 all the constitutional analysis from a liberty focused perspective um that you need do you still

00:33:28.100 do your hot takes i haven't listed in a little bit we do our bad legal takes of the week where we

00:33:33.380 yeah we sometimes it's politicians often it's law professors but there's always some people across

00:33:38.980 canada that are just having some horrible bad legal takes so we it's legit funny like i've laughed out

00:33:44.260 loud walking my dog listening to those bad legal takes awesome thank you so much for your time

00:33:48.420 today thank you so much once again that was the executive director of the canadian constitution

00:33:54.420 foundation joanna barron be sure to go check out their website and for real not reserving judgment is 0.51

00:34:00.180 a really good podcast to listen to like i feel smarter after listening to it and they often discuss

00:34:06.340 topics like we were just discussing and also i would just i would say kind of lower court cases that may

00:34:12.660 not have made national news because they're all lawyers and they all have nerdy lawyer friends and

00:34:18.260 so they all talk amongst themselves and they produce a really good show in a serious note it's really

00:34:23.940 important to pay attention to groups like the canadian constitution foundation like i said off the top

00:34:30.180 they were one of the key groups that fought for and won at the federal court level which described and

00:34:38.820 decided that what prime minister justin trudeau when he invoked the emergencies act did was wrong

00:34:45.620 that it was unconstitutional that you can't do that to people you can't freeze their bank accounts and

00:34:50.420 you shouldn't have invoked the emergencies act that's under appeal right now but i'll put it this way

00:34:56.340 if you are too afraid to speak truth to power as the kids say if you are too afraid to express yourself

00:35:04.100 and express your displeasure with the government no matter what it's doing earnestly if you're from

00:35:09.940 the left or the right you should be able to freely express yourself in canada and say that i want to

00:35:16.660 hold the government to account if you're suddenly not allowed to do that then we're in really deep

00:35:22.660 trouble so folks make sure you head on over to juno news make sure you subscribe to juno news because

00:35:29.380 we're the ones that do these in-depth deep dive interviews with important groups like the canadian

00:35:36.100 constitution foundation thank you so much for watching be sure to like and share this interview

00:35:42.900 with people who need to know

Juno News - September 30, 2025

Jobs VANISH in Alberta while Carney visits Europe (again)

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