The Bill Comes Due...

 

Today's mood.

Today there is great gnashing of teeth, wailing and the rending of garments as the Canadian media has an abject paroxysm. Even Goldstein at the Sun is not immune.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford's use of the Charter's notwithstanding clause to override collective bargaining rights poses the same threat to democracy as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's use of the Emergencies Act to override the rights of people protesting vaccine mandates.

In Ottawa, the question is whether the government had no other means to end the Freedom Convoy than to invoke the emergency legislation, when no other federal government has felt the need to do so in the 34 years since it was passed, despite terrorist threats (see, for example, the days immediately following 9/11), highway and railway blockades and other economic crises.

In Ontario, the question is whether the government had no other alternative than to take away the bargaining rights of 55,000 unionized education support workers to maintain continuity and stability in the public education system.

Now, that sounds all very democratic and everything, but if I may recall a little piece of recent history, Ontario's teachers all went out on strike in 2020, two years ago. Right at the beginning of the pandemic. 

Yeah, you remember that right? February March 2020, when we all thought we were going to die, the teachers were having a nice little job action. Never let a crisis go to waste, uh huh.

So here we are, and the Ontario government has finally, FINALLY had it with these scammers. For those not familliar, the "notwithstanding clause" is the "FUCK YOU!" escape hatch built into the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is known as the notwithstanding clause. Also known as the override clause, it is part of the Constitution of Canada. The clause allows federal, provincial or territorial governments to temporarily override, or bypass, certain Charter rights. These overrides are subject to renewal after five years.

Yes, that's right. You only have rights as long as the feds or a province lets you. As soon as those rights become inconvenient, NOTWITHSTANDING that the Charter says you have the right to collective bargaining, the province can pass a law that says "FUCK YOU!" and suddenly you don't have no rights at all. That's not really the province's fault, that's thanks to the fuckery involved in the Charter itself. The truth is that the government can do -anything- they want, legally. They can jail all the Japanese in the country, they can seize property and bank accounts, they can fucking well kill you if they want it bad enough, and nobody can legally say jackson.

(For you Americans, this is like the State of New York saying that the Second Amendment of the Constitution is void in NY because "FUCK YOU!" Historically this was known as the Sullivan Act. It took from 1911 until this year to get that shit struck down, but it did happen, finally. In Canada all they have to do is pass a new bill every five years and they are good to go.)

So why is the PC Party of Ontario invoking this supposedly nuclear option? Hell if I know.

I suspect it is because the Ontario Teacher's Union and the Canadian Union of Public Employees are their political enemies, and they want to put the boot into them after getting jacked up in 2020. If so, I must say it is well-deserved. They fucked around, they found out.