Juno News - Ottawa's latest proposal could hand the Supreme Court sweeping new powers

The Supreme Court of Canada has struck down the " notwithstanding clause" limiting the powers of the Prime Minister in relation to certain matters, including the use of the notwithstanding clause to protect the rights of individuals and their families. What does this mean for the rest of the country, and what will the Supreme Court have to say about it?

00:00:00.000 Why now? Why is the federal government doing this now? Like, do we know?

00:00:06.220 That's the million dollar question. We don't know. I can tell you some of the rampant speculation I've heard. One speculation I heard is that Ottawa is setting up a showdown between itself and Alberta, actually, and is going to set itself as the sort of protector of rights and Alberta as the villain.

00:00:26.060 That's one theory. Another theory that I've heard is that this was basically a lawyer's brainchild.

00:00:33.960 It could have been David Lamedi, who was dean of McGill Law, very academic lawyer, obviously recently left PMO.

00:00:40.860 This was just a hobby horse of his. There's no question that lawyers like to bring in tests and frameworks.

00:00:47.980 And so this was really just a lawyer's idea and the federal government ran with it.

00:00:52.780 It could be also that Carney is looking to wedge himself with Pierre Polyev, who has said very openly that if he were to be prime minister, he would invoke the notwithstanding clause on the federal level for the very first time in relation to mandatory minimum sentences and violent criminals getting out on bail easily.

00:01:12.540 But nobody knows for sure, Chris.

00:01:15.380 So lastly, on this issue with Alberta, could this then be used, say, you know, apart from the social issues, as they're often described, say that we wanted to strike down C-69 or say we wanted to get rid of the energy cap or strike down the tanker ban off the West Coast and say that the federal government said, OK, fine, and agreed with us.

00:01:37.060 there would be a miracle and we would be able to actually get our energy out to market in this

00:01:42.380 situation um say the supreme court or a level of court says you know what i don't think so because

00:01:48.200 for whatever reason name it um you know national unity or environmental blah blah blah and in that

00:01:54.260 situation the prime minister of the government in ottawa says notwithstanding your decision and

00:01:59.460 opinion on this we're going ahead with it anyway in this scenario if this goes through then would

00:02:05.500 the Supreme Court have the final say and be able to just squash it? Yeah, absolutely. The clear

00:02:10.920 implication is that Ottawa is proposing a transfer of power. The federal government is proposing

00:02:15.680 a transfer of power to the courts to have the ultimate reviewing say. It says particularly if

00:02:21.940 the courts find that an invocation of the notwithstanding clause would cause what they

00:02:25.580 call irreparable harm, which you could easily see in the context, or you could easily see a lawyer

00:02:30.560 making this argument in the context you bring up um about energy pipelines and you know arguments

00:02:36.240 around environmental impact they would have the final word and again that's where the constitutional

00:02:40.880 crisis would come in um because it would come down to basically a battle of wills would alberta just 0.99

00:02:47.280 plow ahead with it even though it's officially unconstitutional or at that point do you just

00:02:52.240 have to say I have we have to play by the rules.

Juno News - October 01, 2025

Ottawa's latest proposal could hand the Supreme Court sweeping new powers

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