Sask. premier to use notwithstanding clause to veto judge ruling on school pronoun policy
Sask. premier to use notwithstanding clause to veto judge ruling on school pronoun policy
A Regina judge has ruled that the Saskatchewan government's naming and pronoun policy should be paused for the time being, but Premier Scott Moe says he'll use the notwithstanding clause to override it.
Moe, responding to today's injunction issued by a Regina Court of King's Bench Justice Michael Megaw, said he intends to recall the legislature Oct. 10 to "pass legislation to protect parents' rights."
"Our government is extremely dismayed by the judicial overreach of the court blocking implementation of the Parental Inclusion and Consent policy - a policy which has the strong support of a majority of Saskatchewan residents, in particular, Saskatchewan parents," Moe said in a written statement Thursday afternoon. "The default position should never be to keep a child's information from their parents."
Last month, the province announced that all students under 16 needed parental consent to change their names or pronouns.
The Notwithstanding Clause is an admission that what they are doing is an unconstitutional christofascist virtue signaling attack on a vulnerable minority.
Fuck all christofascists. Get out and vote these assholes out the next chance you get.
Children have a right to education. Parents do not have a right to keep their children ignorant. It is Orwellian doublespeak to say that they are "protecting parent's rights" by invoking the NWC. The NWC has no capacity to grant rights, it can only take them away.
Exactly. This legislation is a violation of children's Charter Rights.
The Notwithstanding Clause is the only way to legally violate Charter Rights in emergency situations like... *checks notes*... youth expressing their gender and sexual identity.
The notwithstanding clause is only ever used to suppress the rights of groups a given provincial government doesn't like. It's inclusion in the Charter was a mistake and as long as it remains all of our 'rights' are merely privileges.
My understanding was that it was intended as an “emergency brake” - a circuit breaker that could be tripped in an urgent situation, at the cost of the user’s career. But, that requires a politically literate population that would discourage its use.
So, instead we have strongman premiers using it as a hammer to point their profoundly unpopular policies through, and an apathetic and disengaged voter base willing to look the other way.
I see it as part of the broader erosion of the “checks and balances” we were assured would prevent this type of creeping dismantling of democracy.
and an apathetic and disengaged voter base willing to look the other way.
In my opinion, and personal experience, it also has a lot to do with not having enough time and energy to think about anything other then putting food on the table, or even where your next meal is coming from. Certainly there are people that just don't give a fuck, but I think that would be the minority if more people weren't living paycheque to paycheque.
Who knew we'd have more than a few semi neo-nazis as premiers tho?
Actually, withholding Assent is the circuit breaker. The NWC is a mechanism to ensure that parliament makes the law, not judges. A judge may have a perfectly reason for making their verdict, and it totally makes sense to do so by a good number of the populous, but parliament is in charge and they're allowed to set the rules.
Bill 101 exists to protect the culture of a minority in Canada so what you're saying isn't true.
#DrugFraud used it to shrink TO city council (the courts reversed it later) ... so Bill 101 doesn't apply all the time.
strong support of a majority of Saskatchewan residents
Sure, a majority of people who are old enough to vote, anyway.
Eroding the rights of people who can't even vote is straight up tyrannical. Doubly so when the courts say "hey maybe you shouldn't do that" and you invoke the notwithstanding clause to do it anyway.
Does anyone know if the notwithstanding clause has actually been used to do anything other than prop up racism and hatred?
Yes. Ontario's government has used it for good old-fashioned profiteering.
New Brunswick tried to use it to mandate vaccination in schools, but the law didn't pass. In Saskatchewan, they briefly used it to override a court ruling that held that the government couldn't provide funding for non-Catholic students to attend Catholic schools, but the case was overturned on appeal so the notwithstanding clause became moot.
Bill 101 in Quebec was/is a way to fight the assimilation of French Canadians and to integrate immigrants to the local culture instead of seeing them integrate the culture of the country's majority.
Bring in the downvotes!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
A Regina judge has ruled that the Saskatchewan government's naming and pronoun policy should be paused for the time being, but Premier Scott Moe says he'll use the notwithstanding clause to override it.
Moe, responding to today's injunction issued by a Regina Court of King's Bench Justice Michael Megaw, said he intends to recall the legislature Oct. 10 to "pass legislation to protect parents' rights."
Earlier Thursday, Megaw issued his 56-page ruling ordering the policy be put on hold until a full hearing can take place.
"I determine the protection of these youth surpasses that interest expressed by the government, pending a full and complete hearing," Megaw wrote.
Megaw wrote that until there can be a full hearing, "the importance of the governmental policy is outweighed by the public interest of not exposing that minority of students to exposure to the potentially irreparable harm and mental health difficulty of being unable to find expression for their gender identity."
Megaw also said the government "does not appear to advance an argument that such treatment of the younger students is in their best interests or will, necessarily, lead to better outcomes for them from a mental health perspective.
The original article contains 609 words, the summary contains 191 words. Saved 69%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
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Good. Tired of these activist judges going against the will of the people.
Just so you know, judges are specifically not to look to the will of the people but to the law.
Legislators are the ones who are supposed to consider the will of the people.
If the will of the people really is to have a law like this, then the Sask Party is doing it's job in bringing forward the legislation. That, of course, assumes that our provincial government has appropriate jurisdiction over everything the law covers.
And that gets us to the injunction. An injunction is not about "no you can't do that" but about "hang on there, it doesn't look like you've covered all the bases".
"I believe other people's human rights should be violated because I don't like them" is a great position to have right up until you're the disliked party.
I imagine you picture yourself as always the top dog. Protected, even, by the belief that even if you find yourself face down in the mud, the people you gleefully abuse will not step on your head to let you drown in the muck.
And you're probably right that they wouldn't. Because they're probably better people than you are, having had to learn empathy in a world that doesn't think much of them.
But I kind of hope you choke on dirt.
Your personal opinion ≠ everyone else's opinion
Get your head out of your ass and look around for once.
The polls don't lie my dude. 78% of parents want to be informed if their child changes pronouns or name.
AcTiViSt JuDgEs
If the charter of rights and freedoms needs to be suspended to pass a law, that means the law is in violation of the charter of rights and freedoms.
Ah, I see you skipped the "tyranny of the majority" section during social studies...