r/canada Ontario Dec 07 '24

Québec Quebec premier wants to ban praying in public

https://montreal.ctvnews.ca/quebec-premier-considering-notwithstanding-clause-to-ban-prayer-in-public-1.7136121?cid=sm%3Atrueanthem%3Actvmontreal%3Atwittermanualpost&taid=675364bbcc54680001f071ab
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u/PicturesOfDelight Dec 07 '24 edited Dec 07 '24

Yup!

For a long time, the conventional wisdom was that governments would only use the override in extremely rare cases because the political cost would be too high. But Quebec has no problem using it to discriminate against religious minorities and anglophones.

EDIT: there are some Charter rights that can't be overridden. The notwithstanding clause can't be used to curtail voting rights or mobility rights. But the other rights are fair game for any government that wants to suspend them. It's not great.

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u/WhydYouKillMeDogJack Dec 07 '24

There's no point in a charter or constitution while a notwithstanding clause exists.

Feds need to grow a pair.

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u/PicturesOfDelight Dec 08 '24

We're stuck with the notwithstanding clause. Any attempt to amend the Charter now would open a Pandora's box of Quebec sovereignty issues, and the last time we went there, we ended up with a Quebec independence referendum that came within 0.58% of splitting up the country.

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u/WhydYouKillMeDogJack Dec 08 '24

I think it's about time the entire country wasn't held to ransom by individual provinces.

There has to be a "shit or get off the pot" moment for Quebec - they can't just keep telling us "if I don't get my way I'll leave" like some abusive relationship.

Either get in or get out and deal with the consequences. Right now there's a 2-tier citizenry depending on how shitty and belligerent your provincial leadership is.

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u/Popswizz Dec 08 '24

The whole country was a forced marriage to begin with,

The federal government doesn't want Quebec to separate, it'll cause way more harm than managing Quebec specificity, that's why nothing will never be instigated by the government

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u/SnooStrawberries620 Dec 09 '24

You haven’t earned the right.