The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter
A book launch/roundtable among contributors to the new collection
This event is free and open to public; .
The event will also be
The use of section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the "notwithstanding clause" (NWC), has been justified as a means of preserving Quebec’s culture and of promoting its identity as a nation. Yet Quebec’s pre-emptive and sweeping invocation of the NWC, like other provinces’ use of it, tests assumptions about the relationships between the judiciary, legislature, and public.
MISC presents a panel discussion amongst some leading experts and commentators who have contributed to a new and important volume, collection (McGill-Queen's University Press). Edited by Peter Biro, the collection examines the NWC from all angles, considering who should have the last word on matters of rights and justice – the legislatures or the unelected judiciary – and what balance liberal democracy requires.
By virtue of its contested purposes, interpretations, operation, and applications, the NWC represents and, to an extent, defines the character and the vulnerabilities of liberal constitutionalism. The significance, effects, and legitimacy of the NWC have been debated within scholarship and among politicians and activists since the Charter's enactment in 1982. In The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter, leading scholars, jurists, and policy experts consider the status quo and potential reforms to the application of this consequential device.
Featuring:
Peter Biro
Robert Leckey
Jonathan Montpetit
Marion Sandilands
Moderated by Jennifer Elrick
The lecture will be followed by a Q&A and reception. This event is co-organized by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada and the Faculty of Law at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ. McGill-Queen’s University Press will also offer copies of the book for sale.
Peter L. Biro is the Founder and President of the democracy think-tank, Section 1, Senior Fellow of Massey College, Centre Associate of the University of British Columbia Centre for Constitutional Law and Legal Studies and Chair Emeritus of the Jane Goodall Institute. He is the Editor, most recently, of The Notwithstanding Clause and the Canadian Charter: Rights, Reforms, and Controversies (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2024). He is an Adjunct Professor in the University of Toronto Faculty of Law where he teaches Constitutional Law in the GPLLM Program. Peter has published widely in the scholarly, professional, and popular press and is a frequent lecturer, public speaker and commentators on matters of law and politics. He was, for many years a leading member of the litigation bar of Ontario and was a partner at WeirFoulds LLP and Goodman and Carr LLP. Peter obtained an Honours B.A. in political science at the University of Guelph, his M.A. in political theory from McMaster University, and his LLB and BCL at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ.
Robert Leckey is dean and Samuel Gale Professor in the Faculty of Law at Ï㽶ÊÓƵ, where he teaches and researches in constitutional law and family law. He served as director of the Paul-André Crépeau Centre for Private and Comparative Law from August 2014 to June 2016. He is editor of a collection entitled After Legal Equality: Family, Sex, Kinship (Routledge, 2015). His monograph Bills of Rights in the Common Law appeared in Cambridge University Press’s Studies in Constitutional Law in 2015.
Jonathan Montpetit is a senior investigative journalist with CBC News, where he covers social movements and democracy. He holds graduate degrees in political science from the London School of Economics and Ï㽶ÊÓƵ. In 2021, he was a Southam Journalism Fellow at Massey College.
Marion Sandilands practices civil litigation, constitutional and administrative law at Conway Litigation in Ottawa. She has appeared before multiple courts including the Supreme Court of Canada. After her call to the bar, she served as a law clerk to the Hon. Yves De Montigny (now Chief Justice of the Federal Court of Appeal) and the Hon. Andromache Karakatsanis at the Supreme Court of Canada. She teaches Constitutional Law at the University of Ottawa. She speaks and has published on matters of constitutional, public, and administrative law. She has provided expert comments on constitutional issues for the David Asper Centre for Constitutional Rights (University of Toronto), the Centre for Constitutional Studies (University of Alberta), and for the Toronto Star and Global News. A proud Montrealer by birth, she is a graduate of Ï㽶ÊÓƵ’s Faculty of Arts and Faculty of Law.
