Tom Mulcair: Mike Ward’s decision may bode ill for Quebec’s minorities

While it may seem far-fetched, the decision may contain a hint as to how our superior court might tiptoe around the issue of rights in Quebec.

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Understandably, the English-speaking community remains quite concerned about Bill 96, which would in effect remove the constitutional equality of English and French before the Quebec courts.

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For its part, the Quebec Bar Association has warned that the law is constitutionally unstable. The stability of our judicial system should be one of the highest priorities of the Minister of Justice, Simon Jolin-Barrette. But it seems obvious that for Coalition Avenir Québec, the courts are a distant second after stirring the pot of language, to bolster their position with their nationalist base.

English-speaking Quebecers may find some consolation in that the Court of Appeal has shown little tolerance for any interference with language rights and recently dismissed a serious conviction for failing to respect the right to a trial in English as prescribed by the Penal Code. .

Even so, while it may seem far-fetched, the recent Canadian Supreme Court decision in the Mike Ward case may contain a clue as to how our highest court might tiptoe around the issue of rights in Quebec, in this point in Canadian history. .

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When “comedian” Mike Ward was sued under the Quebec Human Rights Charter for brutally mocking a child with Treacher Collins syndrome, and ordered to pay damages, there was an uproar from Quebec artists. Many took the stage at a televised awards show wearing masks with a big red X, calling the censorship decision on artistic freedom.

As one of my professors in law school said, judges don’t usually quote the news, but that doesn’t mean they don’t watch it.

The narrow 5-4 ruling in the Mike Ward case means a boy who contemplated suicide after Ward’s play was used to taunt him on the schoolyard will not be compensated. Reading the court’s reasoning (Ward’s victim was himself a public figure who had sung for the Pope … he should have sued under the Civil Code, not the Human Rights Bill …) one gets the disturbing feeling that most of the justices were looking for a way to avoid ordering Ward to pay damages.

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Bill 21 is moving painfully slow through the courts. It openly restricts the rights and freedoms of certain religious minorities, but Prime Minister François Legault has used the “notwithstanding clause” to try to put these discriminatory provisions out of the reach of the courts. The English Montreal School Board sought to have its constitutional rights reaffirmed while awaiting the final result. The Court of Appeal ruled last week that they will also have to wait.

Bill 96 similarly restricts constitutionally guaranteed rights. Legault and Jolin-Barrette defend these discriminatory laws saying that the majority of Quebecers agree with them. As if human rights were a popularity contest.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks of a good game on human rights. His attorney general, David Lametti, has publicly said he has a legal opinion that the constitutional amendment in Bill 96 is valid. However, since that law would eliminate language rights, it is a legal certainty that Quebec cannot do so unilaterally. Even if Lametti doesn’t know, presumably his lawyers do.

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Back in the 1950s, long before the Charter, the Supreme Court cracked down on Quebec Prime Minister Maurice Duplessis in the famous Roncarelli case involving religious freedom. One can be forgiven for thinking that if the case were to be re-tried today, Duplessis would win somehow.

Historically, Canadians have had the same guaranteed rights from coast to coast to coast. But Trudeau, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, and conservative leader Erin O’Toole do not want a fight with Legault and they have all said they will not challenge Bill 21 or, eventually, Bill 96. That is a political decision .

The real question now is whether our Supreme Court will also begin to have political rather than legal overtones when it comes to rights-related cases in Quebec.

Tom Mulcair, a former leader of the federal NDP, served as Minister of the Environment in Jean Charest’s liberal Quebec government.

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Reference-montrealgazette.com

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