Abstract
This paper highlights choices made by legislatures when they activate the notwithstanding clause in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Such choices relate to the extent of the rules or statutes protected from possible strike- down; to the Charter provisions from which protection is granted; and to timing, namely, whether the notwithstanding clause is used pre-emptively or after litigation. These choices may significantly affect voters’ knowledge of the effect on rights of a law shielded by the notwithstanding clause. Moreover, uses of the notwithstanding clause relate variably to theoretical justifications for this mechanism. For example, the view of the notwithstanding clause as a means by which a legislature disagrees with the judiciary on rights is inconsistent with recent practice. This paper’s attention to the modalities of uses of the notwithstanding clause advances debate on this distinctive feature of the Canadian constitution.
Citation Information
Leckey, Robert.
"Legislative Choices in Using Section 33 and Judicial Scrutiny."
The Supreme Court Law Review: Osgoode’s Annual Constitutional Cases Conference
115.
(2024).
DOI: https://doi.org/10.60082/2563-8505.1446
https://digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/sclr/vol115/iss1/4
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
References
1 Part I of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B to the Canada Act 1982 (U.K.), 1982, c. 11 [hereinafter "Charter" or "Canadian Charter"].
2 Charter, s. 33(1).
3 Peter W. Hogg & Wade K. Wright, Constitutional Law of Canada, 5th ed., vol. 2 (Toronto: Thomson Reuters, 2007) (loose-leaf updated 7/2021, release 1), at 39-6.
4 Peter W. Hogg & Wade K. Wright, Constitutional Law of Canada, 5th ed., vol. 2 (Toronto: Thomson Reuters, 2007) (loose-leaf updated 7/2021, release 1) at 39-7.
5 Grégoire Webber, Eric Mendelsohn & Robert Leckey, "The Faulty Received Wisdom around the Notwithstanding Clause", Policy Options (May 10, 2019), online: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2019/faulty-wisdom-notwithstanding-clause/; Robert Leckey, "Advocacy Notwithstanding the Notwithstanding Clause" (2019) 28:4 Const. Forum 1; Robert Leckey & Eric Mendelsohn, "The Notwithstanding Clause: Legislatures, Courts, and the Electorate" (2022) 72:2 U.T.L.J. 189. https://doi.org/10.21991/cf29389
6 Grégoire Webber, "The Notwithstanding Clause, the Operation of Legislation, and Judicial Review" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 93. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.13944127.9
7 Maxime St-Hilaire, Xavier Foccroulle Ménard & Antoine Dutrisac, "Judicial Declarations Notwithstanding the Use of the Notwithstanding Clause? A Response to a (Non-)Rejoinder" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 132. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.13944127.12
8 R. v. Oakes, [1986] S.C.J. No. 7, [1986] 1 S.C.R. 103 (S.C.C.).
9 Robert Leckey & Eric Mendelsohn, "The Notwithstanding Clause: Legislatures, Courts, and the Electorate" (2022) 72:2 U.T.L.J. 189 at 213. https://doi.org/10.3138/utlj-2020-0135
10 Grégoire Webber, "Notwithstanding Rights, Review, or Remedy? On the Notwithstanding Clause and the Operation of Legislation" (2021) 71:4 U.T.L.J. 510 at 518 ("absence of a privative or ouster clause or other mention of judicial review from the wording of the notwithstanding clause") https://doi.org/10.3138/utlj-2020-0066; Grégoire Webber, "The Notwithstanding Clause, the Operation of Legislation, and Judicial Review" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 93 at 94 ("there is no reference to 'judicial review' or other language that would affirm that legislation invoking the clause shall not be questioned or reviewed in any court") https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.13944127.9; Eric M. Adams & Erin J. Bower, "Notwithstanding History: The Rights-Protecting Purposes of Section 33 of the Charter" (2022) 27:1 Rev. Const. Stud. 121 at 142 ("[n]othing in the text of the notwithstanding clause or its context or purposes suggests that it precludes judicial engagement with the question of whether a particular Charter right has been infringed and justifiably limited or not" when the legislature resorts to s. 33). https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4185044
11 Maxime St-Hilaire, Xavier Foccroulle Ménard & Antoine Dutrisac, "Judicial Declarations Notwithstanding the Use of the Notwithstanding Clause? A Response to a (Non-) Rejoinder" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 132, as well as Geoffrey Sigalet, "Notwithstanding Judicial Review: Legal and Political Reasons Why Courts Cannot Review Laws Invoking Section 33" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 168, argue in different ways that s. 33 makes judicial review impossible while it protects legislation. Sigalet argues that s. 33(2) "prohibits judicial review" (see also Geoffrey T. Sigalet, "The Truck and the Brakes: Understanding the Charter's Limitations and Notwithstanding Clauses Symmetrically" (2022) 105 S.C.L.R. (2d) 194 at 218; Geoffrey Sigalet, "Legislated Rights as Trumps: Why the Notwithstanding Clause Overrides Judicial Review" 61:1 Osgoode Hall L.J. [forthcoming]), even that it does so "directly". Whether or not s. 33(2) is best understood as telling courts not to examine protected laws, it is a stretch to say that it "prohibits" their doing so ("[t]o forbid (an action, event, commodity, etc.) by a command, statute, law, or other authority; to interdict" (Oxford English Dictionary, online, s.v. "prohibit")), let alone that it does so "directly". Sigalet's subtle argument about the subjunctive mood or conditional tense of s. 33(2) involves attention to alternative wording that the drafters might have used. Yet he does not consider how easily the drafters could have drawn on the familiar language of privative clauses had their chief aim been barring access to a reviewing court.
12 MacKay v. Manitoba, [1989] S.C.J. No. 88 at para. 9, [1989] 2 S.C.R. 357 at 361 (S.C.C.).
13 While courts routinely exercise discretion in such screening, interpreting s. 33 as allowing courts to decide to examine a protected law may reduce the certainty associated with some conceptions of the rule of law (see, e.g., Antonin Scalia, "The Rule of Law as a Law of Rules" (1989) 56:4 U. Chicago L. Rev. 1175). https://doi.org/10.2307/1599672
14 St-Hilaire and his co-authors disagree with this proposition, favouring a view with which Mendelsohn and I engaged (Robert Leckey & Eric Mendelsohn, "The Notwithstanding Clause: Legislatures, Courts, and the Electorate" (2022) 72:2 U.T.L.J. 189 at 194-195). https://doi.org/10.3138/utlj-2020-0135
15 See Dwight Newman, "Key Foundations for the Notwithstanding Clause in Institutional Capacities, Democratic Participatory Values, and Dimensions of Canadian Identities" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 69. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.13944127.8
16 Peter W. Hogg & Wade K. Wright, Constitutional Law of Canada, 5th ed., vol. 2 (Toronto: Thomson Reuters, 2007) (loose-leaf updated 7/2021, release 1) at 39-8; see also Guy Régimbald & Dwight Newman, The Law of the Canadian Constitution, 2d ed. (Toronto: LexisNexis Canada, 2017) at 608, para. 21.13; Jamie Cameron, "The Text and the Ballot Box: Section 3, Section 33 and the Right to Cast an Informed Vote" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 381. For the innovative suggestion that associating the five-year limit for each use of s. 33 with the maximum interval between elections is "unconvincing", see Maxime St-Hilaire, Xavier Foccroulle Ménard & Antoine Dutrisac, "Judicial Declarations Notwithstanding the Use of the Notwithstanding Clause? A Response to a (Non-)Rejoinder" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 132 at 155. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.13944127.25, https://doi.org/10.1515/9780228020219-024.
17 Jamie Cameron writes of democratic accountability as "establish[ing] a critical bond" between the notwithstanding clause and the right to vote: Jamie Cameron, "The Text and the Ballot Box: Section 3, Section 33 and the Right to Cast an Informed Vote" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 381 at 383. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780228020219-024
18 Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] S.C.J. No. 61 at para. 52, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217 (S.C.C); Toronto (City) v. Ontario (Attorney General), [2021] S.C.J. No. 34 at para. 55, 2021 SCC 34 (S.C.C.), Wagner C.J.C. and Brown J.
19 Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] S.C.J. No. 61 at para. 62, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217 (S.C.C).
20 Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] S.C.J. No. 61 at para. 68, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217 (S.C.C).
21 Reference re Secession of Quebec, [1998] S.C.J. No. 61 at para. 67, [1998] 2 S.C.R. 217 (S.C.C).
22 See further Caitlin Salvino, "Notwithstanding Minority Rights: Rethinking Canada's Notwithstanding Clause" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 401. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.13944127.26
23 Robert Leckey & Eric Mendelsohn, "The Notwithstanding Clause: Legislatures, Courts, and the Electorate" (2022) 72:2 U.T.L.J. 189 at 203-209. https://doi.org/10.3138/utlj-2020-0135
24 Ford v. Quebec (Attorney General), [1988] S.C.J. No. 88, [1988] 2 S.C.R. 712 (S.C.C.) [hereinafter "Ford"].
25 Ford, at 741 (the legislature "may not be in a position to judge with any degree of certainty" which Charter provisions might be successfully invoked against legislation).
26 There are varying readings of Ford. Webber, Mendelsohn and I read it as addressing the conditions a legislature must meet to activate the notwithstanding clause (Grégoire Webber, "Notwithstanding Rights, Review, or Remedy? On the Notwithstanding Clause and the Operation of Legislation" (2021) 71:4 U.T.L.J. 510 at 536 https://doi.org/10.3138/utlj-2020-0066 ; Robert Leckey & Eric Mendelsohn, "The Notwithstanding Clause: Legislatures, Courts, and the Electorate" (2022) 72:2 U.T.L.J. 189 at 191 n10), leaving it open for a court to examine a protected law's impact on rights (see similarly Eric M. Adams & Erin J. Bower, "Notwithstanding History: The Rights-Protecting Purposes of Section 33 of the Charter" (2022) 27:1 Rev. Const. Stud. 121 at 141). I know no basis for thinking that the justices hearing Ford considered this possibility, distinct from "substantive review of the legislative policy in exercising the override authority in a particular case" (Ford, at 740), let alone that they rejected it. But Maxime St-Hilaire, Xavier Foccroulle Ménard & Antoine Dutrisac, "Judicial Declarations Notwithstanding the Use of the Notwithstanding Clause? A Response to a (Non-)Rejoinder" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 132 at 139, read Ford otherwise. They suggest diplomatically that any "honest reading" of the appeal yields the conclusion that s. 33 makes rights inapplicable to the protected legislation, preventing any judicial declaration that a protected law infringes rights.
27 Eric M. Adams & Erin J. Bower, "Notwithstanding History: The Rights-Protecting Purposes of Section 33 of the Charter" (2022) 27:1 Rev. Const. Stud. 121 at 142. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4185044
28 Lorraine Eisenstat Weinrib, "Learning to Live with the Override" (1990) 35:3 McGill L.J. 541 at 556 (criticizing Ford for not requiring the legislature to specify the impact on rights in the legislation activating the notwithstanding clause).
29 For the view of s. 33 as a safety valve on the part of a premier who negotiated the Charter, see Dwight Newman, "Canada's Notwithstanding Clause, Dialogue, and Constitutional Identities" in Geoffrey Sigalet, Grégoire Webber & Rosalind Dixon, eds., Constitutional Dialogue: Rights, Democracy, Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) 209 at 218, discussing Peter Lougheed, "Why a Notwithstanding Clause?" in Centre for Constitutional Studies Points of View, No. 6 (Edmonton: University of Alberta Centre for Constitutional Studies, 1998), publishing the Marv Leitch QC Lecture, delivered at the University of Calgary, November 20, 1991. For scholarly presentation of the proposition that a legislature should not use s. 33 upstream of litigation, see, e.g., Donna Greshner & Ken Norman, "The Courts and Section 33" (1987) 12:1 Queen's L.J. 155 at 187-197. For argument that a legislature should not use s. 33 until the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled on the law, allowing "courts [to] deliberate through judicial decisions and legislatures [to] decide whether to accept the courts' conclusions", see Tsvi Kahana, "Understanding the Notwithstanding Mechanism" (2002) 52:2 U.T.L.J. 221 at 225.
30 Eric M. Adams & Erin J. Bower, "Notwithstanding History: The Rights-Protecting Purposes of Section 33 of the Charter" (2022) 27:1 Rev. Const. Stud. 121 at 142. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4185044
31 Robert Leckey & Eric Mendelsohn, "The Notwithstanding Clause: Legislatures, Courts, and the Electorate" (2022) 72:2 U.T.L.J. 189 at 213. https://doi.org/10.3138/utlj-2020-0135
32 An Act respecting the laicity of the State, CQLR, c. L-0.3 [hereinafter "Bill 21"].
33 Tsvi Kahana, "Understanding the Notwithstanding Mechanism" (2002) 52:2 U.T.L.J. 221 at 260-265 https://doi.org/10.2307/825966; for an updating of Kahana's survey of uses of the notwithstanding clause, see Caitlin Salvino, "A Tool of Last Resort: A Comprehensive Account of the Notwithstanding Clause Political Uses 1982-2021" (2022) 16:1 J.P.P.L. 1.
34 Geoffrey Sigalet, "Legislated Rights as Trumps: Why the Notwithstanding Clause Overrides Judicial Review" 61:1 Osgoode Hall L.J. [forthcoming]. https://doi.org/10.60082/2817-5069.3978
35 Good Spirit School Division No. 204 v. Christ the Teacher Roman Catholic Separate School Division No. 212, [2017] S.J. No. 150, 2017 SKQB 109 (Sask. Q.B.).
36 Constitution Act, 1867 (U.K.), 30 & 31 Vict., c. 3, s. 93 [reprinted in R.S.C. 1985, App. II, No. 5]; The Saskatchewan Act, 1905, 4-5 Edw. VII, c. 42 (Can.), ss. 3, 17(1) [reprinted in RS.C. 1985, c. App. II, No. 21].
37 Saskatchewan v. Good Spirit School Division No. 204, [2020] S.J. No. 92, 2020 SKCA 34 (Sask. C.A.).
38 The Education Act, 1995, S.S. 1995, c. E-0.2.
39 The School Choice Protection Act, S.S. 2018, c. 39, s. 3.
40 Charter of the French language, CQLR, c. C-11 [hereinafter "Charter of the French language"].
41 An Act to amend the Charter of the French language, S.Q. 1988, c. 54, s. 10.
42 Bill 21, s. 34.
43 Bill 96, An Act respecting French, the offıcial and common language of Québec, S.Q. 2022, c. 14, s. 217 [hereinafter "Bill 96"]. The activation of the notwithstanding clause, in that provision, refers to "[t]his Act and the amendments it makes, other than those made by sections 1 to 122", but ss. 1-122 are shielded from the Canadian Charter by s. 121's insertion into the Charter of the French language of a new s. 214 that activates the notwithstanding clause for that instrument.
44 Bill 307, Protecting Elections and Defending Democracy Act, 2021, S.O. 2021, c. 31, s. 4, amending the Election Finances Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. E.7. For a challenge based on s. 3 of the Canadian Charter, see Working Families Coalition (Canada) Inc. v. Ontario, [2023] O.J. No. 1010, 2023 ONCA 139 (Ont. C.A.), leave to appeal granted [2023] S.C.C.A. No. 181 (S.C.C.).
45 Bill 11, An Act Respecting Proof of Immunization, 59th Leg., 3rd Sess. (defeated on third reading, June 18, 2020). The invocation of the notwithstanding clause was removed by the Standing Committee on Economic Policy, on June 16, 2020. Canadian Press, "New Brunswick committee drops notwithstanding clause from vaccination bill", CTV News (June 17, 2020), online: https://atlantic.ctvnews.ca/new-brunswick-committee-drops-notwithstandingclause-from-vaccination-bill-1.4987933.
46 Tsvi Kahana, "The Notwithstanding Mechanism and Public Discussion: Lessons from the Ignored Practice of Section 33 of the Charter" (2001) 44:3 Can. Pub. Admin. 255 at 281, n1 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1754-7121.2001.tb00891.x; see, further, Henri Brun, Guy Tremblay & Eugénie Brouillet, Droit constitutionnel, 6th ed. (Cowansville, QC: Yvon Blais, 2014) at 969, para. XII-2.17; see also Benoît Pelletier, "The Notwithstanding Powers and Provisions: An Asset for Quebec and for Canada" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 205. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.13944127.16
47 Tsvi Kahana, "Understanding the Notwithstanding Mechanism" (2002) 52:2 U.T.L.J. 221 at 260-265. https://doi.org/10.2307/825966
48 Caitlin Salvino, "A Tool of Last Resort: A Comprehensive Account of the Notwithstanding Clause Political Uses 1982-2021" (2022) 16:1 J.P.P.L. 1 at 17.
49 An Act to amend the Charter of the French language, S.Q. 1988, c. 54.
50 Bill 28, Keeping Students in Class Act, 2022, S.O. 2022, c. 19, s. 13(1), repealed by Bill 35, Keeping Students in Class Repeal Act, 2022, S.O. 2022, c. 20.
51 See, e.g., Lorraine Eisenstat Weinrib, "Learning to Live with the Override" (1990) 35:3 McGill L.J. 541 at 599.
52 See, e.g., Pierre Trudel, "L'abus de dérogation" Le Devoir (September 28, 2021), online: https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/chroniques/635823/chronique-l-abus-de-derogation (author's translation of "mur à mur").
53 While it falls outside a focus on s. 33 of the Canadian Charter, legislation can simultaneously trigger a notwithstanding mechanism in a quasi-constitutional rights instrument, such as the Canadian Bill of Rights, S.C. 1960, c. 44; Quebec's Charter of HumanRights and Freedoms, CQLR, c. C-12 [hereinafter "Quebec Charter"]; or the human rights code of another province. Enactment by the National Assembly of legislation that operates notwithstanding the Quebec Charter is unrelated to concerns about the patriation process in the early 1980s and the consequent (il)legitimacy of the Canadian Charter. For discussion of the idea of "autonomizing" the Quebec Charter by allowing it to operate while activating s. 33 of the Canadian Charter, see Louis-Philippe Lampron, "La Loi sur la laïcité de l'État et les conditions de la fondation juridique d'un modèle interculturel au Québec" (2021) 36:2 C.J.L.S. 323 at 330.
54 Steve Rukavina, "Legal Experts Fact-Check Quebec Ad Campaign That Aims to Correct 'Falsehoods' on Controversial Language Law" CBC News (June 3, 2022), online: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/legal-experts-fact-check-quebec-ad-campaign-thataims-to-correct-falsehoods-on-controversial-language-law-1.6474927.
55 Bill 21, s. 2.
56 Geoffrey Sigalet, "Notwithstanding Judicial Review: Legal and Political Reasons Why Courts Cannot Review Laws Invoking Section 33" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 168 at 176-177 (emphasis omitted). https://doi.org/10.1515/9780228020219-012
57 Sigalet, given his laudable attention to political morality and democratic will, might be interested by polling data on Bill 21 from August 2022. The survey produced by the Association for Canadian Studies, in collaboration with SurveyMonkey and polling house Léger, reported that 64.5 per cent of Quebecers surveyed believed that it would be important for the Supreme Court of Canada to give its opinion as to whether Bill 21 is discriminatory https://doi.org/10.30992/KPSR.2022.09.21.3.5; only 46.7 per cent of those surveyed would continue to support the law if the courts "confirmed" that it violated the charters of rights and freedoms. Association d'études canadiennes, La Loi 21 : Discours, perceptions & impacts, Sondage AEC mai-juin 2022, online: https://acs-metropolis.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Rapport_Sondage-Loi-21_AEC_Leger-12.pdf; see also Émilie Nicolas, "Les mythes et réalités de la loi 21" Le Devoir (August 11, 2022), online: https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/chroniques/743721/les-mytheset-realites-de-la-loi-21.
58 Lorraine Eisenstat Weinrib, "Learning to Live with the Override" (1990) 35:3 McGill L.J. 541 at 556.
59 Canada (Attorney General) v. Bedford, [2013] S.C.J. No. 72 at para. 44, 2013 SCC 72 (S.C.C.).
60 It may also frustrate the role of the courts as interpreters of Charter rights, even if - by a conception of coordinate construction - they are not the sole interpreters. See Dennis Baker, Not Quite Supreme: The Courts and Coordinate Constitutional Interpretation (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2010); see also Christopher Manfredi, "Court, Legislatures, and the Politics of Judicial Decision-Making (or Perhaps the Notwithstanding Clause Isn't Such a Bad Thing After All)" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 184. For the view that a pre-emptive use - upstream of a law's application to facts by a court - reflects the civilian tradition's preference for abstract norms, see Guillaume Rousseau & François Côté, "Bill 21 and Bill 96 in Light of a Distinctive Quebec Theory of the Notwithstanding Clause: A Distinct Approach for a Distinct Society and a Distinct Legal Tradition" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 231. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.13944127.17
61 Hak c. Québec (Procureur général), [2021] J.Q. no 3808 at para. 770, 2021 QCCS 1466 (Que. S.C.), substantially revd (sub nom. Organisation mondiale sikhe du Canada c. Québec (Procureur général)), [2024] J.Q. no 1118, 2024 QCCA 254 (Que. C.A.) (author's translation). Justice Blanchard emphasized that, "remarkably and relevantly, Bill 21 was the first legislation to derogate simultaneously from sections 1 to 38 of the Quebec Charter and section 2 and 7 to 15 of the Canadian Charter" (at para. 768 (author's translation)).
62 Hak c. Québec (Procureur général), [2021] J.Q. no 3808 at para. 768, 2021 QCCS 1466 (Que. S.C.) (author's translation).
63 Or, to draw on Tsvi Kahana, "The Notwithstanding Clause, Bill 96, and Tyranny" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 287, the degree of "tyranny" shown by the legislature.
64 Newman's understanding by which s. 33 was "not an incoherent compromise" (Dwight Newman, "Canada's Notwithstanding Clause, Dialogue, and Constitutional Identities" in Geoffrey Sigalet, Grégoire Webber & Rosalind Dixon, eds., Constitutional Dialogue: Rights, Democracy, Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) 209 at 214) contrasts with readings of s. 33 as less principled. See, e.g., Janet L. Hiebert, "The Notwithstanding Clause: Why Non-use Does Not Necessarily Equate with Abiding by Judicial Norms" in Peter Oliver, Patrick Macklem & Nathalie Des Rosiers, eds., The Oxford Handbook of the Canadian Constitution (New York: Oxford University Press, 2017) 695 at 695 ("not the product of any grand normative theory about constitutional design"). https://doi.org/10.1093/law/9780190664817.003.0033
65 Dwight Newman, "Canada's Notwithstanding Clause, Dialogue, and Constitutional Identities" in Geoffrey Sigalet, Grégoire Webber & Rosalind Dixon, eds., Constitutional Dialogue: Rights, Democracy, Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) 209 at 216. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108277938.009
66 Dwight Newman, "Canada's Notwithstanding Clause, Dialogue, and Constitutional Identities" in Geoffrey Sigalet, Grégoire Webber & Rosalind Dixon, eds., Constitutional Dialogue: Rights, Democracy, Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) at 218 https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108277938.009; see also Eric M. Adams & Erin J. Bower, "Notwithstanding History: The Rights- Protecting Purposes of Section 33 of the Charter" (2022) 27:1 Rev. Const. Stud. 121 at 138-139.
67 Eric M. Adams & Erin J. Bower, "Notwithstanding History: The Rights-Protecting Purposes of Section 33 of the Charter" (2022) 27:1 Rev. Const. Stud. 121 at 142; see also at 139. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4185044
68 Geoffrey T. Sigalet, "The Truck and the Brakes: Understanding the Charter's Limitations and Notwithstanding Clauses Symmetrically" (2022) 105 S.C.L.R. (2d) 194 at 209; see also Eric M. Adams & Erin J. Bower, "Notwithstanding History: The Rights- Protecting Purposes of Section 33 of the Charter" (2022) 27:1 Rev. Const. Stud. 121 at 222 ("a legitimate way for legislatures to express disagreements about rights"); Geoffrey Sigalet, "Legislated Rights as Trumps: Why the Notwithstanding Clause Overrides Judicial Review" 61:1 Osgoode Hall L.J. [forthcoming] ("capacity to trump judicial mistakes concerning the just meaning of rights as they relate to different persons and states of affairs"; "use the notwithstanding clause to correct abuses of judicial review that threaten to undemocratically replace reasonable legislative constructions of rights").
69 Geoffrey T. Sigalet, "The Truck and the Brakes: Understanding the Charter's Limitations and Notwithstanding Clauses Symmetrically" (2022) 105 S.C.L.R. (2d) 194 at 211; see also Eric M. Adams & Erin J. Bower, "Notwithstanding History: The Rights-Protecting Purposes of Section 33 of the Charter" (2022) 27:1 Rev. Const. Stud. 121 at 221 ("use notwithstanding declarations in ways that deliberately seek to protect rights by specifying their boundaries").
70 Geoffrey T. Sigalet, "The Truck and the Brakes: Understanding the Charter's Limitations and Notwithstanding Clauses Symmetrically" (2022) 105 S.C.L.R. (2d) 194 at 222; Geoffrey Sigalet, "Legislated Rights as Trumps: Why the Notwithstanding Clause Overrides Judicial Review" 61:1 Osgoode Hall L.J. [forthcoming] ("ability to enact legislative interpretations of rights using the notwithstanding clause"); Geoffrey Sigalet, "Notwithstanding Judicial Review: Legal and Political Reasons Why Courts Cannot Review Laws Invoking Section 33" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill- Queen's University Press, 2024) 168 at 176 (legislatures having "the power and responsibility to construct the meaning of Charter rights"). https://doi.org/10.1515/9780228020219-012
71 Robert Leckey, "Bill 96: An Attack on Justice and Fundamental Rights" Policy Options (May 20, 2022), online: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2022/bill-96-fundamentalrights/.
72 Peter W. Hogg & Wade K. Wright, Constitutional Law of Canada, 5th ed., vol. 2 (Toronto: Thomson Reuters, 2007) (loose-leaf updated 7/2021, release 1) at 39-7.
73 Dwight Newman, "Canada's Notwithstanding Clause, Dialogue, and Constitutional Identities" in Geoffrey Sigalet, Grégoire Webber & Rosalind Dixon, eds., Constitutional Dialogue: Rights, Democracy, Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) 209 at 228-229. Mark Mancini and Geoffrey Sigalet write that the Saskatchewan legislature's "use of the notwithstanding clause shows how it can be employed in a way that constructs and protects reasonable understandings of Charter rights" ("What Constitutes the Legitimate Use of the Notwithstanding Clause?" Policy Options (January 20, 2020), online: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/january-2020/what-constitutes-the-legitimate-use-of-thenotwithstanding-clause/) . https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108277938.009
74 Geoffrey Sigalet, "Legislated Rights as Trumps: Why the Notwithstanding Clause Overrides Judicial Review" 61:1 Osgoode Hall L.J. [forthcoming]; see also Dwight Newman, "Canada's Notwithstanding Clause, Dialogue, and Constitutional Identities" in Geoffrey Sigalet, Grégoire Webber & Rosalind Dixon, eds., Constitutional Dialogue: Rights, Democracy, Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) (legislatures jointly responsible with courts "to establish the valid scope of the right to religiously neutral state action as it relates to the right of historically protected denominations to public funds"). https://doi.org/10.60082/2817-5069.3978
75 Dwight Newman, "Canada's Notwithstanding Clause, Dialogue, and Constitutional Identities" in Geoffrey Sigalet, Grégoire Webber & Rosalind Dixon, eds., Constitutional Dialogue: Rights, Democracy, Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) 209 at 229. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108277938.009
76 Dwight Newman, "Canada's Notwithstanding Clause, Dialogue, and Constitutional Identities" in Geoffrey Sigalet, Grégoire Webber & Rosalind Dixon, eds., Constitutional Dialogue: Rights, Democracy, Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) 209 at 229. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108277938.009
77 Dwight Newman, "Canada's Notwithstanding Clause, Dialogue, and Constitutional Identities" in Geoffrey Sigalet, Grégoire Webber & Rosalind Dixon, eds., Constitutional Dialogue: Rights, Democracy, Institutions (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019) 209 at 229. See, e.g., Rebecca Jones, Nathaniel Reilly & Colleen Sheppard, "Contesting Discrimination in Quebec's Bill 21: Constitutional Limits on Opting out of Human Rights" Directions (2019) https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108277938.009; Frédéric Mégret, "Lost in Translation? Bill 21, Human Rights and the Margin of Appreciation" (2020) 66:1 McGill L.J. 213 https://doi.org/10.7202/1082059ar; Frédéric Mégret, "Ban on Religious Symbols in the Public Service: Quebec's Bill 21 in a Global Pluralist Perspective" (2022) 11:2 Global Constitutionalism 217. https://doi.org/10.1017/S2045381721000265
78 See Grégoire Webber, "The Notwithstanding Clause, the Operation of Legislation, and Judicial Review" in Peter L. Biro, ed., The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024) 93 at 93-94. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.13944127.9
79 For our proposal that "the superior courts' role as the guardians of the Constitution and their duty to consider rights claims in appropriate cases may require them to exit their comfort zone", see Robert Leckey & Eric Mendelsohn, "The Notwithstanding Clause: Legislatures, Courts, and the Electorate" (2022) 72:2 U.T.L.J. 189 at 211. https://doi.org/10.3138/utlj-2020-0135
