Justin Trudeau has decided to open hostilities with Quebec by launching the charge against the notwithstanding clause.
As we know, this clause represents the point of tension between the 1867 constitution, which was based on parliamentary sovereignty, and the 1982 constitution, based on the sovereignty of the Charter of Rights, interpreted by judges.
This Charter limits the power of elected officials in the name of an ever broader conception of “individual rights”. In fact, it enshrines the primacy of judges over elected officials.
Judges
Behind this is a strange conception of democracy, based on the mistrust of the people, always suspected of falling into populism and the “tyranny of the majority”.
The clause is the last instrument to restore some power to elected officials.
But this clause has a special charge for us.
Because it is through it that Quebec can, to a certain extent, defend the laws that allow it to ensure the protection of its identity.
And that’s what Ottawa is fighting for. In Canada, the multiculturalist ideology is sacred. And Canada does not tolerate Quebec favoring another model.
François Legault presents this position taken by Justin Trudeau as a political attack on Quebec. With reason.
But he should go further.
Does he not consider it absurd to have to justify Quebec laws before the federal courts, especially since they are already drafted to prevent them from contradicting a constitution that Quebec nevertheless refuses to sign? ?
Nationalism
Doesn’t he see in this the limit of his acceptance of the Canadian framework? Does he remember that he was already a separatist?
Unless François Legault is agitated only to send a signal to the fringe of the nationalist electorate which is gradually returning to the PQ.
This assumption should be taken seriously as well.