When Pierre Trudeau died in 2000, it looked like his political legacy was secure. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms had been in place for nearly two decades, and it had already delivered a series of crucial rights-expanding victories for Canadians. Just as importantly, perhaps, the Notwithstanding Clause had only been used twice outside of Quebec, where it was routinely attached to legislation as a kind of ongoing reminder of the province’s refusal to sign the 1982 Constitution Act. 

As it turned out, the Conservatives who had long sought to undermine or overturn the Charter of Right and Freedoms were just biding their time. In the decades since Trudeau’s death, the Notwithstanding Clause has increasingly been used by provincial governments — Conservative ones, of course — as legal cover for legislation that deprives certain Canadians of their constitutionally guaranteed rights. In the last election, Pierre Poilievre even pledged to use it in order to pass harsher (and, presumably, otherwise unconstitutional) sentencing legislation.

Former prime minister Jean Chretien, who played a key role as attorney general in negotiating the political compromise that secured provincial support for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, called out the increasingly reckless use of the Notwithstanding Clause in a........

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