@GumptionAndCo:
Embody grace by supporting genocide
@TrendPolCa:
WATCH: PM @MarkJCarney at National Prayer Breakfast urges MPs to embody Canadian generosity through grace, time and mercy for enduring impact.
More important, honest and valuable, listen to this non vomit inducing 5:56 Min:
celeste.lgbt:
The different judicial interventions in the matter of Bill 21 shows the different governments’ priorities.
Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan, alongside Québec, hate the Charter and hate our constitutional human rights protections.That’s because they are con gov’ts. Con voters are incredibly stupid in my view – the always vote against their better interests and get harmed again and again by those they worship and vote for, like those seeking and marrying abusive spouses4.
Manitoba, B.C., and the feds are more favourable to them.
The anti-trans risk map can be correlated with these different Attorney General interventions, because contempt for the human rights of some is contempt for the human rights of all.
@mcopelov.bsky.social:
Wildly unconstitutional fascist Christian theocratic bullsh*t. If a Jewish or Muslim Secretary of Defense organized monthly on-site prayer at the Pentagon, evangelical Christians & the catholic majoritySupreme Court would absolutely lose it.
@ryanlcooper.com:
Pete Hegseth worships the devil. simple as
@mcopelov.bsky.social:
Again, only Christians get to insert religion into public life in America and in fucking Canada!!!& then get away with claiming they are not being “political.”
This is exactly what @sethcotlar.bsky.social & @badtoss.bsky.social were talking about…. Christians, especially evangelicals, can assert their beliefs that their religious beliefs should be the law of the land, while also being treated as not “political,” in ways no other group is allowed.especially those opposed to hideously cruel patriarchal misogynistic rape religions like christianity, notably catholic like Carney!
@eric1990s.bsky.social:
Freedom of religion doesn’t give you the right to shove yours down others’ throats.
Mark Carney invokes Christian values as top court told religious beliefs don’t belong in government, On the same day Quebec vigorously defended its law promoting state neutrality and secularism in government, Prime Minister Mark Carney declared religious values can and should frame how politicians act by Tonda MacCharles, Ottawa Bureau Chief, March 24, 2026, Toronto Star
@sustainablesong.bsky.social:
It’s hard to imagine which one of Mr Carney’s policy decisions the biblical Christ would find more delight in. Gigantic tax cuts that prioritize the already rich? Ignoring the direst warnings that’s he’s worsening climate catastrophe? Or could it be arms shipments to a genocide? So Christian.
OTTAWA — Right before Quebec vigorously defended its law promoting state neutrality and secularism in public services, Prime Minister Mark Carney stood at a national prayer breakfast and declared religious values can and should frame how politicians act.
Carney’s display of his Catholic faith Tuesday stood in stark contrast with a heated debate about the value of state secularism that played out an hour later at the Supreme Court of Canada.
Where Carney quoted from the Gospel of Matthew and from Christ’s Sermon on the Mount to talk about the grace and generosity that politicians should channel,
Quebec’s lawyers argued religious beliefs should not be on display by public officials, saying the state should be neutral, and public services delivered without signs of any religious belief.
At day two of a critical court challenge of Quebec’s 2019 ban on religious symbols worn by teachers, police officers or court workers, the provincial government argued that the controversial law is constitutional and none of the top court’s — or Ottawa’s — business.
Lawyers for the Coalition Avenir Quebec government led by outgoing Premier François Legault argued the province properly invoked a constitutional override power allowing it to bypass the Charter of Rights and Freedoms without requiring it to justify any limitations on rights on free expression, freedom of religion or equality rights.
The Carney government has taken no formal position on the notion of secularism in the law, but objects to how Quebec and other provinces are using the Constitution’s notwithstanding clause to override Charter rights pre-emptively.
Federal lawyers will make oral arguments as one of 51 interveners — a record high — in the case on Wednesday. In a written brief, Ottawa argues despite the override, judges retain the jurisdiction to declare whether rights and freedoms that are temporarily suspended by a government “have been unjustifiably limited.”
“The Constitution gives Parliament and the legislatures a wide margin to enact laws in the public interest within their respective jurisdictions. However, this latitude has never been absolute: the principle of parliamentary sovereignty has always been constrained by the Constitution,” argues the federal government.
Quebec got strong backing on Tuesday, however, from a group called “Pour les droits des femmes du Quebec,” which argued against religious symbols like a burqa, and head or face coverings like the niqab worn by some Muslim women in the name of modesty, saying those coverings in effect promote the inequality and inferiority of women.
Lawyer Christiane Pelchat, quoting experts and witness testimony, said the “moral obligation of wearing the head scarf is justified by the principle of modesty and the necessity of hiding the female body, considered as a source of temptation and dirtiness, which must be covered not to tempt men.”
She said such attitudes are mainstays of patriarchal religions around the world, and have no place in Quebec’s public life.
“We have to stop demonizing this law,” said Pelchat.
She said the state should not allow employees to display religious symbols while exercising public functions in the name of respecting religious beliefs because that would create a hierarchy of rights.
“Of course this is politically correct. Everyone wants to be nice to everybody else, but no, there are obligations that do exist,” said Pelchat.
The Quebec government claims it enacted the secularism law after years of debate, repeated attempts to reconcile religious freedoms with the desire for “state neutrality” and respect for women’s equality. It drew on recommendations of the Bouchard-Taylor Commission, said lawyer Samuel Chayer, adding the objective was “not to identify any wrongdoing, not to stigmatize anyone, it had to do with reconciliation and accommodation.”
The law also bans elected officials at Quebec’s National Assembly from wearing face coverings or displaying articles of religious faith, which some challengers say prevent minorities from holding public officeDo they forbid all christian symbols in the Assembly and related offices, schools, etc , and forbid crosses around any one’s necks or on pins, scarves etc.?
Quebec argued the Constitution’s Section 33 only requires lawmakers to list the rights that are “suspended.” It does not require further justification or evidence the law is a “reasonable limit,” and once invoked, puts the law beyond federal or judicial reproach.
Often called an escape clause, the section allows a province to enact any law it deems necessary “notwithstanding” Charter of Rights protections for freedom of expression, religion, legal procedural rights, and prohibitions against discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability grounds. It cannot be used to limit mobility or democratic voting rights.
Isabelle Brunet, arguing on behalf of the attorney general of Quebec, said the text of the override provision is “very clear, and it is not up to the court to answer a political question that does not concern the courts.”
She and Chayer reminded judges that the override power unlocked a political logjam over Canada’s Constitution, leading nine of 10 provinces to eventually agree to patriate it and the new Charter of Rights and Freedoms from Britain in 1982 — “one of the most significant compromises in the history of Canada.”
It still carries the taint of Quebec’s refusal to sign on, even though citizens and laws in that province are covered by it.
Chief Justice Richard Wagner, picking up on arguments made a day earlier, asked Quebec to explain why the courts should not exercise judicial review powers, and examine whether a shielded law violates Charter rights, and issue a declaration to that effect. He asked how the court should handle a hypothetical future election of a “tyrant” who invokes the override to “eliminate basic rights of Canadians.” We have one right now, a fucking fraud who conned Canadians into thinking he’s a liberal, and Elbows Up, to fight Nazi USA. Instead, Carney is trampling Indigenous rights, bringing in more and more rights violating laws to please Trump; abusing us with child and women abusing Nazi water polluting and wasting stupid stolen AI; madly deregulating oil and gas and AI to frac and poison Canadians more, wipe out our water even during extreme drought and continental drying caused by global warming, to integrate Canada deeper up America’s genocidal law-violating pedophile protecting, threatening ass; and give the Nazi mass children killers more of our deadly fossil fuels super cheap, or perhaps even for free or less than our cost of production.
But Quebec’s lawyers stood their ground, saying the override clause deserves respect as part of the Constitution.
“The guardians of the Constitution are not just the courts but also elected officials and the electorate,” said Brunet.And, in my direct experience, the courts in Alberta, and the supreme court of Canada, allowed AER to violate my charter rights while destroying my right to remedy as under the Charter. The courts fucking piss on the charter whenever they feel like it, usually depending on their politics or religion. We don’t have equality or equal charter rights in this rape & pillage country, thanks to our inconsistent lying judges and the oil and gas industry ruling and polluting the world, decimating the rights and lives of every living being.
She pointed to an Ontario decision to reverse its 2022 decision to use the override power in back-to-work legislation for public school workers.
“It’s important to trust the democratic process,” said Brunet.Pffft! We only have democracy for some, some of the time in Canada, and under Herr fucking rape religion pimp Carney, we’re fast becoming a toxic bible ruled dictatorship
And if courts were to declare a law did violate rights but remained valid due to the existence of Section 33, judges would only create “confusion,” she said.
“It could lead people to think the act is illegitimate … so it might lead someone to wonder if they should respect the act, should they follow the rules in the act? That may end up undermining the rule of law.”
Several groups and individuals have challenged the secularism law, known as Bill 21, citing violations of religious, gender and minority language rights. However, lower courts have largely upheld the Quebec act.
Oral arguments at the Supreme Court of Canada continue Wednesday and Thursday. A final decision from the court is unlikely for several months.They can rule from the bench, the matter is simple, as was my case before them. Do Canadians, male and female, religious or not, have charter rights equally? “In essence,” they ruled not in my case.
@odd-rox.bsky.social:
This fucking government-sponsored National Prayer Breakfast should have been tossed decades ago. Most Canadians have no idea that taxpayer dollars goes to this.
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@alexneve.bsky.social March 24, 2026:
A critical moment for human rights accountability internationally is when a country’s record of compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is reviewed by the independent experts on the UN Human Rights Committee. It comes around about once per decade. 1/10
Canada has been a party to the ICCPR for 50 years (since 1976) and our last review was in 2015. Our turn came up again this month, and the Committee has just released its Concluding Observations. It is worth a read. 2/10
https://alexneve.ca/s/HRC-COs-March-2026.pdf
A huge shoutout to all the amazing advocates who made submissions to the Committee and even travelled to Geneva to keep up the pressure during this review. 3/10
While the Committee does of course note and commend areas of progress, the Concluding Observations are a vital reminder of the range, nature and seriousness of the human rights challenges and shortcomings we still face. 4/10
As you read you will see reference to many high profile current concerns, including the climate crisis and fossil fuel expansion, the notwithstanding clause, Bills C-5, C-9 and C-12, Quebec’s Bill-21, Canada’s arms control regime, the Safe Third Country Agreement with the United States,… 5/10
…unimplemented recommendations and obligations from the TRC, MMIWG Inquiry, Special Interlocutor on Unmarked Graves and UNDRIP Act, consistent application of Jordan’s Principle, sex discrimination and the Indian Act, regard for FPIC and the land rights of Indigenous Peoples,… 6/10
…repatriating Canadians unlawfully detained in NE Syria (some now transferred to Iraq), problems with the CORE, racism and discrimination, violence against women, over-incarceration, the need to fully operationalize the Public Complaints and Review Commission, immigration detention,… 7/10
…failure to comply with previous Committee Views about healthcare/the right to life/immigration status, and renewed call for Canada to ratify the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention against Torture (a torture prevention treaty we have been “considering” ratifying for > 20 yrs). And more. 8/10
Above all the Committee has – once again – stressed that foundational to living up to our human rights obligations is the need for an effective national framework that will ensure effective, coordinated and consistent implementation by all federal provincial and territorial governments. 9/10
Without that, human rights will inevitably continue to flounder. Minister @marcmillermp.bsky.social, that has to be at the very top of the agenda for the Forum of Ministers on Human Rights, scheduled for May. 10/10Carney is a one man show – a racist, rape religion controlled, misogynistic – who doesn’t care about human rights or any rights or environment, especially not Indigenous or women and girls, or drinking water, or Canada or the rule of law. He cares about money and more money for the rich, shoving unwanted fairy tales down our throats; money, more money and serving the uber rich; and serving child and woman abusing AI (right up his kid raping catholic church’s ally); American military corps, genocidal USA-Israel and citizen murdering ICE; getting rid of immigrants and keeping them out; oil and gas companies – most especially American and giving them billions of our tax dollars while killing tens of thousands of jobs, de-funding most of what makes Canada great and steals from Canadians, especially the most poor, to give to fucking American rich snotty Nazi shits.
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@pauleric70.bsky.social:
Absolute bombshell. Trump casually admits on live TV to intentionally sinking 158 Iranian ships instead of capturing them because it was more fun. He then jokes about systematically extinguishing two entire sets of 88 Iranian leaders. The absolute hubris is staggering.The orange rapist and mass murderer needs to keep his christian base happy and addicted to his and Israel’s inhumanity, racism, hatred and bloodthirstiness
@horselaugh.bsky.social:
So is his cavalier disregard for human life. Looks like he’s adopted Hegseth’s view that the rules of war be damned.Since when has USA heeded rules of war?
@vinkohl.bsky.social:
These people call themselves Christians. Are all Christians this bloodthirsty?
@teeemeff.bsky.social:
The Crusades and the Witch Trials (all over) would like to say yes.
@blackshadow23.bsky.social:
100% correct.
@phyrricvictory.bsky.social:
This is Israel, too. Israel is calling the shots and wants to turn Tehran into Gaza. This means destroy civilian infrastructure, destroy schools, destroy cultural landmarks, destroy roadways, make life unlivable. That’s Israel, who seems to have internalized the evil of the Nazis.
@nikitagill.bsky.social:
Pattern recognition skills are a curse honestly because no one ever believes you and then terrible things happen and they say “well who could have seen this coming”
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@emmettmacfarlane.com:
A reminder that Justice Jamal is not sitting on the SCC’s hearings on Quebec’s Bill 21 because he was politically pressured to recuse. It remains a disturbing incident and one I hope has no impact on the outcome.
Is Supreme Court Justice Jamal’s recusal from the Bill 21 case appropriate? by Emmett Macfarlane, Jul 11, 2024, Defending Canadian Democracy
Supreme Court Justice Mahmud Jamal has recused himself from the legal challenge against Quebec’s Bill 21 – the rights-infringing “secularism” law – after complaints by the province and two interest groups.
The recusal comes despite Justice Jamal’s insistence that there’s no legal requirement for him to do so, and his belief that the partiality claims against him are without merit. The CBC story reports that he decided to recuse himself only to avoid having the issue become a major distraction.
There are very real reasons to worry that a Supreme Court justice has been pushed off a very important case on somewhat tenuous grounds, a case involving a law that grossly infringes the religious freedom of minorities in Quebec, that employs the notwithstanding clause to shield key elements of it from judicial review, and raises issues concerning the scope of other Charter rights provisions, like s28’s protection of sex equality.
The basis for the claimed conflict of interest is that Jamal served on the board of directors for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) from 2006 to 2019, and the CCLA was involved in an initial legal challenge to stay Bill 21 and have it declared invalid.
There are probably two ways of seeing this. On the one hand, it’s comforting to see that Canadian Supreme Court judges take ethics and propriety very seriously. One only needs to look south to the US Supreme Court and utterly corrupt judges like Thomas and Alito, who are mired in, and unrepentant in the face of, serious scandal and much more blatant conflict of interest, to see where a lax standard gets us – that is, a court vacuous of any legitimacy in the eyes of much of the public.
Moreover, conflict of interest shouldn’t just be limited to things like direct material gain. Perception matters.
However, it is possible to push this logic too far.
There are clear occasions where it would be appropriate for judges to recuse themselves from a case, including if the case was one they had heard when serving on a lower court or if they had been a lawyer directly involved in the case.
Far less clear is whether serving on an institutional board or having other connections to a legal advocacy group like CCLA should require recusal. Should Jamal be expected to recuse whenever the CCLA appears as an intervener, on any cases that the CCLA took an interest in from 2006 to 2019?
The specific challenge here is that it is not clear that Jamal had any direct involvement in the case at hand. In fact, it is mostly likely that he didn’t, as boards of directors typically an advisory role in the broad mission of an organization, not a legal role in specific cases the institution might play a role in.
An approach to conflict of interest applied this broadly might inhibit the activities of lawyers who have aspirations to the bench.
Much more significantly than that, where should perceptions of partiality end? If one of our Supreme Court justices was a Muslim woman who wore a headscarf on the bench, would she be expected to recuse from this case? This hypothetical judge would have a much more personal stake in Bill 21 than Justice Jamal does by virtue of his having served on the CCLA board.
I think my problem with the pressure applied on Jamal to recuse is that it really isn’t about some type of meaningful conflict of interest so much as a belief that he is politically predisposed to disfavour Bill 21, with the tenuous fact of his prior board membership as evidence.
But we all know that all judges carry with them their personal beliefs. These aren’t robots. And while we want to set up institutional rules and structure legal decision-making to mitigate the effects of those beliefs and ensure that courts decide on the ‘objective’ basis of what the law requires, at the end of the day judging – particularly at the Supreme Court which deals with ‘hard cases’ and especially in the context of morally-laden rights issues – is to a degree an inescapably political exercise. It is a creative task, laden with fairly broad discretion.
In that light, Justice Jamal’s recusal doesn’t seem so much a victory for legal ethics or propriety as it does a political victory for Bill 21’s defenders. And we should be deeply concerned if the SCC ends up splitting 4-3 in this upcoming case, such that Justice Jamal’s absence has an impact on the outcome.
@bushfield.ca 2026:
Still thinking about how wild it is that the first visible minority justice was asked to recuse himself from a case that affects predominately visible minority communities