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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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