The Conservatives have no objection to the provinces having preventive recourse to the notwithstanding provision of the Canadian Constitution, indicated Tuesday their political lieutenant for Quebec, Pierre Paul-Hus.
“Is the use of a notwithstanding clause in a preventive way as the provinces do, do the Conservatives agree with that? Yeah, ”he said during a press scrum in the foyer of the House of Commons.
Mr. Paul-Hus was then called upon to explain why his party sided with the Bloc Québécois the day before in a vote asking to remind the Trudeau government that it is up to the provinces to decide on the use of the provision derogation, also called notwithstanding clause or derogation clause.
Whether the notwithstanding provision is used “upstream or downstream, it exists, I mean: it is part of the Constitution,” he added.
However, the Bloc motion was defeated since, unsurprisingly, the Liberals and New Democrats oppose the increasingly widespread preventive use in recent years of this provision, which allows the provinces to interfere with fundamental rights.
Conservatives and “Bill 21”
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said last year during his party’s leadership race that he would not reverse the position of Justice Minister David Lametti, who announced that Ottawa would intervene in the Supreme Court. to challenge the State Secularism Act (“Law 21”).
According to Minister Lametti, the provision should allow the provincial legislatures to have “the last word”, adding in the same breath that “when it is used in a preventive way, it is the first word and it cuts short the debate “.
Quebec has invoked the derogation provision in the law that modernizes the Charter of the French language and in “Bill 21”, and the Ontario Premier, Doug Ford, had threatened to do the same to impose an expeditious exit from the conflict of work that pitted him against 55,000 workers in the education sector.
In fact, Paul-Hus said on Tuesday, the Conservatives would “not necessarily” challenge the Secularism of the State Act in the Supreme Court should they take power, since they do not know what exactly the Trudeau government.
Pierre Paul-Hus refused to expand further on his party’s reasoning and turned on his heels in front of the journalists, recalling that he had come to meet them to discuss the cost of living.
Pierre Poilievre, who is a staunch opponent of “Bill 21”, has been the target of his opponents many times during the leadership race. “Are you bilingual or are you not? asked him, in particular, former Premier Jean Charest, criticizing him for not clearly stating his position on the subject in both official languages.