Mr. Speaker, the Supreme Court ruling on tobacco advertising is a wake-up call to Canadians concerned about the state of our democracy.
The court's ruling adds to a jurisprudence that the advertising of large corporations enjoys the same protection as the free speech of individual citizens. The courts are transforming the charter from an instrument that protects the human rights of citizens from an arbitrary state into one that protects powerful corporations from the actions taken by citizens through Parliament to establish the social boundaries of commercial activity.
The court is wrong in determining that corporations have a right to peddle an addictive and deadly substance, a right that overrides the democratic right of citizens to take measures to improve public health by regulating the promotion of dangerous tobacco products.
The government and Parliament, all of us here, should find a way to stand up to the court by invoking the notwithstanding clause to regulate the marketing of tobacco. This is a good example of why the notwithstanding clause was put in the charter in the first place.