In last night's election debate, Paul Martin promised to, if re-elected, crack open the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and rip out the Notwithstanding Clause, the very clause standing between a democracy of the people via elected representatives and an absolute authoritarian partisan-politically-appointed judicial dictatorship.
Paul Martin is playing a dangerous political game. In a desperate attempt to salvage his continually dwindling chances of holding onto power, he's willing to put the rights of Canadians, Canadian democracy and the future of the federation at risk. The removal, or even merely the attempt to do so, of the NWC would set a dangerous precedent. It would send the signal that in Canada our rights are changeable at the whim of a power-mad megalomaniacal egotist hellbent on imposing his wishes and his cronies' wishes on an entire nation of people. It would then mean that any prime minister could undertake to add and subtract rights to and from the Charter if he/she believes doing so will result in increased support in specific areas of the country, enough to win seats sufficient to hold onto power.
Such a move would also spark a constitutional crisis. After all, when the Charter was created, it was only due to the inclusion of the NWC at the insistence of the provinces, who wanted to ensure an emergency mechanism existed to enable a province to override any decision it believed militated against its interests. In fact, the NWC has been used before, by Quebec, as the province wished to "protect" the French language by refusing to acquiesce to federal bilingualism law whose intent it was to "protect the rights" of English- and French-speaking minorities of the federation. Should there be even an attempt to revoke the NWC, the separatist cause in Quebec would almost indubitably be strengthened, likely resulting in another Parti Quebecois majority government in the next provincial election and another separation referendum. Boy-o-boy, did Big Paulie Librano ever deliver a hard slap to the face of Federalist Liberal Premier Jean Charest! Paul Martin has certainly in essence contradicted himself here with respect to his already-laughable claim to be the only federalist leader who can beat the separatists. But then again, he's in total denial as to the fact of his Party's and regime's mountain range of cavalier incompetence, corruption, criminal investigations and so on, which has already caused support for the separatist Bloc Quebecois to skyrocket past 50%. Imagine how much further it might rise should Martin be re-elected and proceed to incise into the Charter and slice out one of its most critical parts. It might kill the patient. Does Mr. Martin realize the danger of his promise?
Of course, Quebec wouldn't be the only province to be angered by such an arrogant affront.
I would suggest Mr. Martin back off and withdraw this assinine idea before he causes any further harm to the Federation.
