Supreme Court Rules Government Liable For Damages For Laws Violating the Charter
The Canadian government is coming to terms with the knowledge that they are not as infallible as they believed in their ability to enact laws without accountability or, more importantly, without liability.
The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed that they should be held to account when enacting unconstitutional laws that infringe upon our rights, specifically those which are “clearly wrong, in bad faith or an abuse of power.”
The decision, described as intending to “strike a balance between the protection of constitutional rights and the need for effective government” states, “The government and its representatives are required to exercise their powers in good faith and to respect the ‘established and indisputable’ laws that define the constitutional rights of individuals.” When legislation is passed that is found to meet “the very high threshold of being clearly unconstitutional, passed in bad faith or that amounts to an abuse of power,” the state can be found liable and be forced to pay reparations.
As expected, the Trudeau government argued they have absolute immunity, based on parliamentary privilege and sovereignty, and the constitutional principles of the separation of powers. They expressed concerns that “damages for enactments of even clearly unconstitutional legislation would open the floodgates to claims and chill them from passing constitutional laws out of concern they would later be on the hook for payments.”
Chief Justice Wagner and Justice Karakatsanis clarify; “By shielding the government from liability in even the most egregious circumstances, absolute immunity would subvert the principles that demand government accountability”.
Section 24(1) of the Charter confirms that damages are available where “appropriate and just in the circumstances.”
Recent history has demonstrated our government’s willingness to trample the rights of Canadians without accountability; we need only look at the freezing of bank accounts as one obvious example.
We can only imagine how concerned they must be now that they know, without a doubt, that we have the ability to dissect all of their decisions with this same scrutiny.
Click here to read the Supreme Court decision Canada (Attorney General) v Power
This is good news.
I was concerned that the widespread corruption of our institutions with the WEF woke-left nonsense to undermine freedoms had reached the Supreme Court.
This recent Supreme Court decision gives hope that Canada is recoverable, and with Pierre Poilievre as prime minister, we will return to a respectable country again.
What should happen next is the reforming of the RCMP and local police to remove their authoritarian attitudes and abide in the rule of law.
The former “storied” and globally respected RCMP can only regain the trust and respect of yesteryear by once again being independent of government. A past Commissioner gave it away to the Fed’s (for a plum?) and so, since then..the PM appoints the Commissioner who then (although still wearing the uniform) is essentially no longer a member of the Force. He or she becomes a “Deputy Minister” and “serves at the pleasure” of the PM who can fire you if you are no pleasing the government…hence the performance (or lack thereof) of a former Commissioner who left in disgrace. Thank God for honourable executive members in Nova Scotia who stood their ground on NOT releasing firearms information on their shooting investigation which would have jeopardized their investigation despite the “politicization” which for the government and Commissioner apparently “trumped” the investigation…just one BAD example (of many in recent years) of what happens when government “controls” police who potentially may be called at times to investigate their own political “masters” who control them…never ends well for “we the people” or democracy!