Ontario Politicians Ignore Charter?
Correction
Andrew Coyne brought up on his blog that Quebec was invoking the nothwithstanding clause to continue teaching of religion in schools even though some Quebec politicians didn't think the Constitution was valid enough to use, hence if its not valid, why use the notwithstanding clause? My response was that the Constitution and Charter mean nothing to politicians anyway.
Case in point, Chris Stockwell the Conservative Minister of Labour in the Mike Harris Regime, allowed individuals with disabilities to left out of Parts 13 s. 41 (1) and 27 s. 141 (2) (b) in the Employment Standards Act, 2000. That's fine and dandy to be able to finger one Minister, but where was the opposition when this Act was passed?
I brought this to the attention of Lynn in Sandra Pupatello's riding office. She agreed with me that the Act was not in compliance with the Charter but did NOTHING to ensure me that endeavors to contact the Minister of Labour to get it changed. So there it sits in contempt of ss. 15 and 32 of the Charter. So what about enforcement guaranteed under s. 24 of the Charter?
Those who need to have that clause in order to protect their guaranteed rights because of discriminatory firings due to a persons disablities or being refused employment because a company doesn't want to incur a percieved liability to their benefit plans, usually don't have the financial where-with-all to pay a lawyer's retainer fee in Ontario.
The Law Society of Upper Canada gutted the Legal Aid fund due to alleged fraud and to mismanagement to the extent that the majority of legal aid certificates dipersed are for criminal matters. The legal aid system is so sick and just plain ignored that those within the provincial government bureaucracy and even within its judicial system itself don't realize that the objects and purpose including s. 13 of the Legal Aid Services Act, 1998 have eroded to the point of state sponsored oppression.
To make it worse the staff of our elected officials, in particular Lynn at Sandra Pupatello's office, stated that verbal agreements weren't binding because they were hard to prove, thinking that her verbal confirmation Ontario's Employment Standard Act was in violation of s. 32 and s. 15 of the Charter wouldn't make them, as elected officials, responsible to see that it was upheld or try to do something about it.
posted by HR at 5/05/2005 10:49:00 a.m.
4 Comments:
You got it backwards. Quebec is invoking the notwithstanding clause to keep teaching religion in its public schools for a few more years. Read the story again.
IMO, it is a welcome move. My daughter's "protestant" religion class at her French school is taught by a Catholic. What is the point in that? If you want your kids to have denominational religious instruction, take them to church.
I made the correction. My point was not the religion issue, because IMO that no religion should be taught in public schools, but the fact the Charter or the Constitution is ignored when writing legislation and passing laws and my example of such a case was the legislation I cited.
Using the notwithstanding clause still has to be reviewed in 5 years.
Fair enough.
In this case, though, it shows that the Quebec government is not ignoring the constitution. The purpose of invoking the notwithstanding clause here is to provide a transition period for schools to implement a non-denominational curriculum as required by the constitution. However, the fact that they have been dragging their feet does speak to the power of the catholic church in delaying compliance.
I understood the irony. Is it the Catholic Church delaying compliance or the Quebec government whose history is intertwined with the Church?
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