This seems to be true. The constitution of the People's Republic of China guarantees the right to freedom of speech, so did the constitution of the Soviet Union, there didn't use to be nearly as much freedom of speech in the United States.
Laws leave a lot of room for interpretation. No country has absolute freedom of speech. Even the U.S. has exemptions for defamation, obscenity, threats, etc. I don't think either the U.S. or Canadian constitutions really protect the right to gay marriage or abortion. The commerce clause is a notoriously far-fetched extension of the U.S. government's power. Nothing really forces courts to interpret things either literally, as intended, or fairly. They can do what they want.
Some laws seem almost designed for abuse. Section 7 of Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms guarantees the "right to liberty" while the 14th amendment to the U.S. constitution protects "priviliges and immunities".
It's debatable whether the Charter of Rights and Freedoms really protects the right to strike. It's true that the Supreme Court has interpreted it as doing so through the right of freedom of association.
I don't understand this. As a general principle, employers can have you agree to give up constitutionally protected rights as a condition of employment. You can get fired for violating a non-disclosure agreement for example. You can also be fired for your political views. That is their freedom of association.
After all, if you're fired, you're in the same position respect to your former employer as everyone else. You don't have a right to your job (that you aren't even doing). You certainly never had a right to be hired by that employer against his will.
So the provincial government is using its constitutional power to unilaterally revoke a right that the courts unilaterally invented, and it's probably for the public good, because I don't see how public sector unions can be justified.
Public sector unions work by restricting the supply of labour available to the government to inflate wages above market rates. This can perhaps be justified when it comes at the expense of corporations, but how can it be when the taxpayer is the one paying? This gives an unearned special status to government employees to extract rents from the rest of the population. If the argument is that they aren't paid very much, why not give them money that everyone with their income level can access?
You can read the two decisions that led to this here and here. The 2015 decision ruled that the Charter protected the right to strike because it was a essential to collective bargaining which was guaranteed by the 2007 decision, and because it promoted equality between employers and employees. I don't see how allowing public sector employees to extract rents from the general by giving them power equal to their government promotes equality. Equality means treating people the same, not elevating one special interest group above everyone else. After all, I don't have a right to get paid by the government while providing nothing in return. Instead, by virtue of who my employer is, I would be forced to pay government employees while they do nothing for me. I never agreed to this, while they did agree to do the work they are now refusing to do.
The 2007 decision ruled that the right to collective bargaining existed because it existed before the Charter (according to what it doesn't say and in any case I don't see how that means the constitution enshrines that right), because of human rights obligations (why does that have any bearing on the constitution?), and because it "reaffirms the values of dignity, personal autonomy, equality and democracy that are inherent in the Charter." As I explained above, it goes against the value of equality. It obviously goes against the value of democracy when it is the democratically elected representatives of the people whose rights are restricted and whose money is being taken in favour of this special interest group.
The relationship between collective bargaining and dignity and personal automony are nebulous. Why isn't my dignity harmed by having rents extracted from me? I suppose there is some dignity and autonomy gained by being able to renege on one's contracts and extort the general public, but it seems like the public's dignity and autonomy pay the price.
The notwithstanding clause serves a specific purpose, which is to uphold the principle of parliamentary supremacy. The courts were not meant to use the Charter to legislate from the bench and undermine the people's representatives. Pierre Trudeau even said at the time it was passed in 1982 that it changed nothing, it only enshrined already existing laws. Clearly not.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
Part of the definition of stagflation is high unemployment, which we don't have.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
I don't see how this law gives the government arbitrary power. It just forces government employees to do the job they agreed and are being paid to do.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
It's a constitutional right that arguably shouldn't exist, and the lunch ladies are overpaid as is typical of government employees.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
Why should they send it to arbitration when it's in the taxpayers' best interest to pay them as little as possible? If the raises are so bad, why don't they work elsewhere? I think it's because they are actually well paid for what they do.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
How could they use the notwithstanding clause to ban political parties and why hasn't it happened yet?
Glassnoser
1yr ago
This is commonly argued, but I don't buy it. The constitution was almost amended in 1987. Why couldn't it be again?
How would it result in the dissolution of the state? That would require a constitutional amendment. If the provinces can't agree on an amendment, the constitution will just stay as it is.
The federal government has the power of taxation which effectively gives it control over areas that are supposed to be under provincial jurisdiction. For example, healthcare is under provincial jurisdiction, but the federal government taxes every province and transfers the money only to those provinces with free public health insurance meeting its requirements. Provinces don't have to go along with this, but if they didn't then they would have to pay a heavy price, which the federal government can raise if needed.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
As a taxpayer, I want my government to use every reasonable tool available to keep costs down. Why should the government negotiate if it doesn't have to and if it might result in them overpaying their employees?
Glassnoser
1yr ago
Not only that, but being government jobs, they probably get excellent benefits and don't require them to work very hard. These jobs probably pay well above average. Low skilled government jobs tend to pay far more than equivalent jobs in the private sector in Canada.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
That's not usually what people mean by skilled labour. Bus drivers, for example, only get a few months training.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
The U.S. is a much richer country than Canada. I have an engineering degree and I make just under $16 USD an hour or about $12 an hour after income tax. This is in a city with a relatively high cost of living.
Also, despite the lower wages, the cost of living is similar to the US.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
What recourse, if any, should the government have when the courts go rogue and start inventing rights that never existed before at the taxpayers' expense? Your argument seems to rely on the assumption that it's important to protect rights just because the Supreme Court decided it was protected by the constitution.
I'm not saying that it's good the government va always override the constitution on most matters. But I do think that it is good in this case, because allowing public sector unions to strike is harmful.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
I guess it's not like the US then because in Canada, low skilled government employees tend to be paid much better than their counterparts in the private sector.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
That's the direct result of federal policy. Just to the east, Timmins had extensive gold mines. The Quebec side did not. So the government suppressed farming on the Ontario side.
I don't understand. You mean just to the west right? Why did that lead to the government suppressing farming on the Ontario side and how did they do that?
Glassnoser
1yr ago
I was surprised to learn the word 'keener' (meaning someone who is overly keen) is not used outside of Canada.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
Suppose you're being honest, what is the requirement for claiming indigenous ancestry? The average white American has 0.2% indigenous ancestry, which means 1 out 500 of their ancestors were indigenous.
About 10% of my ancestors I can't trace back to Europe, and they were mostly New Englanders with English last names. Depending on what the marriage patterns were in the 17th and early 18th centuries, I think that means I probably have a few indigenous ancestors.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
Are we expecting the same delay in counting mail-in ballots as we were in the 2020 election, which caused the vote counts to flip in favour of the Democrats over night?
Glassnoser
1yr ago
I think he was quite clear that he honestly believes a 51% chance of double the population and a 49% chance of killing everyone is better than keeping the same population. The firs caveats was just that if you doubled the population in the same world, you might not really get double the population in the long run because it might slow down population growth somehow (e.g. through reaching the carrying capacity earlier). The second caveat was just that he didn't think that if you started talking about infinite numbers of people that it would make any sense.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
As someone who had never heard of FTX until this week, I found this article by Matt Levine very helpful in explaining what happened.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
If they used 23andme data, then it wasn't a GWAS. A GWAS looks at the entire genome. 23andme only looks at 600,000 SNPs.
Glassnoser
1yr ago
to hushed discussions of «pivotal act outside the Overton Window»
What is this referring to?
Glassnoser
1yr ago
How is there artificial scarcity? The bots aren't reducing the supply of tickets.
The notwithstanding clause doesn't apply to all rights in the charter. Voting rights and aboriginal rights are examples of rights that are exempt.
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