Hear, hear! Good. They are being honest.
Madam Speaker, this is the first time that I have accused a Conservative Party of being the former Reform Party. I have said this many times in the House, but now the Conservatives are actually applauding it. In all honesty, I respect their honesty on the matter. I respect where Conservatives are coming from. I respect that they are being honest about it, and I mean that genuinely.
They are the Reform Party. They do not believe in the Constitution. That is just the way it is. We have the Leader of the Opposition, who routinely suggests that he would use the notwithstanding clause, as he sees fit, to ensure that all the laws that he thinks should be subject to the law of the land shall be there. We have a Constitution for a reason, and that is to protect minorities and to protect the rights of minorities. That was the whole intent of it.
In fairness, I respect the fact that the Conservatives are so open about this. The member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, on Friday, said that, to be clear, they would only use the notwithstanding clause when it comes to using it for the purposes of criminal justice. That is interesting. That sounds reasonable, at least to the layperson, does it not? Let us just think about what he is saying. He is saying, as it relates to criminal matters, that they are open and willing to use the notwithstanding clause. If the Reform Party had that same approach in the 1990s, it could have used that notwithstanding clause when the Supreme Court overturned the criminal offence of performing an abortion. What we are talking about here is the Conservative Party of Canada literally starting to talk about restricting and removing rights of Canadians.
This issue matters to me. I have a five-year-old daughter, and I want to make sure that my daughter grows up in the world with the same rights that her mother had. I cannot believe that we are even having this discussion about rolling back a woman's right to choose.
The member for Peace River—Westlock today, presenting on behalf of his constituents, said that he wanted to roll back the charter decision and ask the government to bring in more restrictive measures for individuals, in particular women, who are trying to exercise their rights to choose. We are entering very dangerous territory with that rhetoric. I know where their political angle is. They think the average person will not know what the notwithstanding clause is, what it means or what the implications are, so it really does not matter. They will just sound good in what they are saying, and people will believe them.
Do members know what? I am not going to weigh in on whether I believe that to be right or wrong, but I will say that even just using that language and going down that road, being willing to treat people in a manner in which they can make sure that they can do things because people are not going to be paying attention, is extremely dangerous. That is what we are seeing.
It cannot be a coincidence, literally almost a year ago to the day in the United States of America, when Roe v. Wade was overturned, that suddenly, Conservatives are feeling empowered and emboldened to start having these discussions now. We would not have heard that come from Conservatives a year ago or five years ago. Stephen Harper intentionally avoided talking about it because he did not want to go anywhere near the matter, even though he may have had his own personal opinions on the Constitution. He never went near it because he knew it was not smart to do so.
The Leader of the Opposition is looking at the opportunities in the States, parroting the alt-right MAGA Republican politics of the States and trying to utilize those exact same talking points and those exact same ways of operating in Canada.
I will commit to any and every Canadian who is watching this and, indeed, who is in Canada, that I will do everything I personally can to ensure that the Constitution and the Charter of Rights continue to mean something and continue to be something that they can rely on to protect the rights of minorities in this country.