Western Standard - February 05, 2024


Notley says Smith being insincere with gender identity policies


Episode Stats

Length

1 minute

Words per Minute

179.74867

Word Count

329

Sentence Count

9

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

In the wake of the Supreme Court of Canada's ruling on the use of the Not Withstanding Clause in Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms by conservative governments across the country, the question of what the federal government should do about it arises.


Transcript

00:00:00.040 We are here in Ottawa. The federal government here has expressed a very
00:00:04.260 vehement opposition as well to what's happening and said they're looking at a
00:00:07.800 broad range of options. The premier had left open the door to invoking the
00:00:11.640 notwithstanding clause in order to get this this kind of stuff passed if it's
00:00:14.820 the form of it that takes legislation. She wouldn't be the first premier to do
00:00:18.600 that. Saskatchewan's premier did the same on gender identity policy back in the
00:00:22.140 in the fall I believe. Do you think the federal government needs to look at a
00:00:27.180 way of dealing with that? Well I think I certainly would. I mean let me start
00:00:33.540 with the fact that I'm very troubled by with it by the recent frequency with
00:00:37.500 which conservative governments across this country are invoking the not
00:00:41.880 withstanding clause in order to avoid providing and security securing the
00:00:48.060 charter rights and freedoms that their citizens otherwise deserve. It seems to
00:00:52.020 me that conservatives and particularly extremist right-wing conservatives don't
00:00:56.160 care about our charter of rights and freedoms don't care about the human rights
00:01:00.000 of Canadians and so that is a threat because of course we know the not
00:01:05.160 withstanding clause was never designed to be used as casually and as
00:01:11.040 conservative governments are currently using it primarily conservative
00:01:14.520 governments and so there that is a problem. Now the way in which it can be
00:01:19.920 fixed is complicated and and and challenging because of course we have an
00:01:24.100 amending formula and I'm not sure that one can change that without access without
00:01:28.820 using the amending formula and we all know that that is very challenging right
00:01:32.620 now so so I'm not sure I'd be interested to hear what tools are in the federal
00:01:37.060 government's toolbox or whether the courts themselves can can can can weigh in on
00:01:42.820 on on on the application and the scope of the notwithstanding clauses use but we do
00:01:48.820 have to do something