Mr. Speaker, following the reasoning presented by the hon. parliamentary secretary, which the government also argued in court, today in Le Devoir, journalist Marie Vastel said:
However convoluted it may be, this reasoning would lead to a federal rewriting of the constitutional compromise that would usurp parliamentary sovereignty and give judges the final say. According to this logic, it would be up to the courts to create this new criterion for assessing the use of the notwithstanding clause and then, on a case-by-case basis, to judge its irrevocability.
Once again, there seems to be a desire to remove political debates from the chambers of elected representatives and hand them over to the courts. This is precisely what the federal government is seeking to do by challenging the pre-emptive use of the notwithstanding clause, even though it is provided for in section 33 of the Constitution. Let us not forget that Quebec did not sign the Constitution.