GUNTER: Feds' notwithstanding clause court application could harm the federation

The federal government is attempting to neuter the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause.

They claim to be doing so to preserve Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms from callous provincial politicians. But, in effect, the Carney Liberals are looking to accomplish the biggest federal power grab since the Constitution was repatriated from Britain, and the Charter added to it, in 1982.

If they succeed — and with the current Supreme Court, I give them a better than even chance of winning — the imbalance that would be created between federal and provincial Constitutional powers could easily cause a national unity crisis.

The current application by the federal government, filed earlier this month with Canada’s top court, centres around Quebec’s Bill 21, passed in 2019. That province’s “sec