Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre listens to media questions during a news conference in Vancouver, on May 14.ETHAN CAIRNS/The Canadian Press
Safety first
Re “Heal thyselves first, uncivil politicians” (May 15): We aren’t governed by kings and princes with soldiers to protect their safety and security. We have vulnerable fellow citizens volunteering their time and effort on our behalf.
Do they deserve any less protection and respect?
Tom Fotheringham Ottawa
I believe politicians should have extra legal protection from verbal harassment when going about their private business.
Unlike store clerks, bus drivers and health care workers, politicians are unavoidably associated with important public issues. They must feel, and be, free to express their personal and party views on such matters without being intimidated.
Intelligent, open-minded people are quitting politics because they often have to deal with toxic situations. That is our great loss.
Getting our party leaders to behave better would be nice, but even if that happened it wouldn’t solve the problem.
Richard Harris Hamilton
RCMP Commissioner Mike Duheme wonders whether the Criminal Code should be amended to address vicious personal verbal attacks on politicians. Under the code, uttering threats and criminal harassment are already crimes, regardless of who the victims are.
Police said threats against an MP to watch her back, and that she would get what was coming to her, don’t meet the standard for pressing charges? Those sound like criminal harassment and threats of bodily harm to me.
Police and courts should vigorously enforce the laws already on the books, to show that threats and criminal harassment are not condoned in our society and that these crimes have consequences.
Carolyn Brown Ottawa
Chart a course
Re “An election about the Charter? What does the PM have to lose?” (May 15): Every time the notwithstanding clause is used, or its use threatened, I feel an unsettling crack in our confederation. What election issue could be more important?
Jack Blaney Vancouver
I am afraid the Charter is already done for.
With his not-so-veiled threats to use the notwithstanding clause, Pierre Poilievre has signalled that he is willing to be the final arbiter about which of our civil rights he would respect, and which he would not. In a Conservative majority parliament, he might well enact legislation defining strict limits on bail conditions and, using the notwithstanding clause, protect it from being overturned by the courts.
Mr. Poilievre might, for example, protect a law prohibiting bail for anyone charged with the killing of a police officer. As we have seen with comments from Doug Ford and former Toronto mayor John Tory, this is an emotional issue and easy populist touchstone.
In their world, Umar Zameer would have spent three years in custody before the trial which found him not guilty. This could be the world that awaits us under a Poilievre government.
Martin Birt Uxbridge, Ont.
The Charter itself specifies that rights are not absolute.
Where a state action violates the Charter, the government can justify the violation by demonstrating to the court that the violation is “demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” The Supreme Court has upheld legislation that violates the Charter if the Section 1 test is met.
This is important to remember as, by implication, those in government or vying for position in government seem to be admitting that proposed legislative action would not only violate the Charter, but would also not be justifiable in a free and democratic society. Is that the Canada we want?
Robert Prior Toronto
During my years as a prosecutor, it was my job to answer Charter challenges to police conduct. This was hard work and often exasperating, especially when directed by defence counsel at police action, which to the mind of ordinary people made practical sense and was motivated by the best of intentions.
I would sometimes mutter to myself a vague wish that the notwithstanding clause be invoked to stifle these attacks. But only briefly and self-indulgently.
Senator Eugene Forsey’s admonition was always correct. To my mind, the dagger of which he spoke is a tool in the hands of dictators, a wedge to pry away fundamental rights and liberties and ultimately a blade to cut our throats.
Pierre Poilievre’s rumination on this topic should be seen in this light and compared to the naked declarations of Donald Trump, who promises to be a dictator, but “only on the first day.”
Ron Beram Gabriola, B.C.
The Constitution of Canada and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms belong to the Canadian people. It does not belong to the premiers or the Prime Minister as a tool to get their way.
By all means, leave the notwithstanding clause as a tool for politicians to use – but only after they have gone to the people with a referendum, whereby they would require 65-per-cent approval from a minimum of 65 per cent of the electorate.
Trampling on our rights should not be easy.
Randy Tait Toronto
In the mid-1980s, I was fortunate to know justice Antonio Lamer.
He was excited about the implementation of the Charter because it was broad and subject to judicial interpretation, making the prospect of his tenure at the Supreme Court both interesting and important. In the years since, judges have created Charter rights that were probably unimaginable at the time it came into force.
An election about the Charter would be a good idea. The public could choose whether an unelected judiciary or elected Parliament had ultimate supremacy in deciding the law of the land. For all the dysfunction in Parliament I, for one, would prefer to let Parliament rule.
Since an election on the issue is unlikely, I find that the use of the notwithstanding clause is not only democratic but constitutional, as it was inserted for the very purpose of allowing governments to override an ambitious court.
John Harris Toronto
With thanks
Re “Canadian soldiers liberate the Netherlands” (Moment in Time, May 13): I’ll never forget when my father-in-law returned to the Netherlands for the 50th anniversary of its liberation. There was an incredible outpouring of love from a whole country during the parade to honour soldiers who had taken part, so many years before.
My father, on the other hand, was stationed in Saskatchewan. Not to demean his part in keeping our country safe, but Germany never got that far.
May the people of Saskatchewan never have to go through what the Netherlands once did.
Steven Brown Toronto
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