See more Toronto Sun on Google — save as a Preferred Source

Ontario Premier Doug Ford may not be a lawyer or legal scholar, but he is absolutely right about the court decision out of Waterloo last week.

LILLEY: Activist judge uses UN law to rewrite Charter and protect drug encampments Back to video

Ford has called the decision “beyond ridiculous” and said the judge is “a few fries short of a Happy Meal” given his reasoning on a homelessness decision.

This decision by Justice Michael Gibson cannot be denounced strongly enough and to let it stand would mean allowing a lower court judge to radically rewrite the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

On the face of it, this case is about whether the Regional Municipality of Waterloo can move a homeless encampment to allow construction to begin for a regional transit hub. With the decision handed down by Gibson, this case is no longer about homelessness — it is about whether courts are able to constitutionalize policy preferences by importing non-binding international norms into the Charter.

Housing has to be OK’d by........

© Edmonton Sun