From: Police on Guard for Thee

The Canadian government is coming to terms with the knowledge that they are not as infallible as they believed in their ability to enact laws without accountability or, more importantly, without liability.

The Supreme Court of Canada has confirmed that they should be held to account when enacting unconstitutional laws that infringe upon our rights, specifically those which are “clearly wrong, in bad faith or an abuse of power.”

The decision, described as intending to “strike a balance between the protection of constitutional rights and the need for effective government” states, “The government and its representatives are required to exercise their powers in good faith and to respect the ‘established and indisputable’ laws that define the constitutional rights of individuals.” When legislation is passed that is found to meet “the very high threshold of being clearly unconstitutional, passed in bad faith or that amounts to an abuse of power,” the state can be found liable and be forced to pay reparations.

As expected, the Trudeau government argued they have absolute immunity, based on parliamentary privilege and sovereignty, and the constitutional principles of the separation of powers. They expressed concerns that “damages for enactments of even clearly unconstitutional legislation would open the floodgates to claims and chill them from passing constitutional laws out of concern they would later be on the hook for payments.”

Chief Justice Wagner and Justice Karakatsanis clarify; “By shielding the government from liability in even the most egregious circumstances, absolute immunity would subvert the principles that demand government accountability”.

Section 24(1) of the Charter confirms that damages are available where “appropriate and just in the circumstances.”

Recent history has demonstrated our government’s willingness to trample the rights of Canadians without accountability; we need only look at the freezing of bank accounts as one obvious example.

We can only imagine how concerned they must be now that they know, without a doubt, that we have the ability to dissect all of their decisions with this same scrutiny.

Click here to read the Supreme Court decision Canada (Attorney General) v Power