The Supreme Court will just make stuff up to subvert the notwithstanding clause

About this episode

Bruce Pardy discusses the Supreme Court's potential to reinterpret the Constitution and the implications of the notwithstanding clause.

If you think the Supreme Court will be reluctant to rewrite the Constitution, as Ottawa wants it to by handcuffing Section 33, then you haven’t been paying attention, as Bruce Pardy tells Brian. It doesn’t matter that the notwithstanding clause explicitly gives parliaments the right to override certain court rulings, or that it was key to the Charter of Rights being passed in the first place, says Pardy, a constitutional scholar at Queen’s University. The rule of Canadian constitutional decisions is that there are no rules. For decades, justices have simply invented interpretations and dreamt up Charter “values” that align with their left-wing politics. And our constitution is conveniently designed to keep that happening — forever. (Recorded March 27, 2026) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

People in this episode

Host: Brian

Guest: Bruce Pardy

Topics covered

• Supreme Court
• notwithstanding clause
• constitutional law
• Charter of Rights
• judicial interpretation

Keywords

• Supreme Court
• notwithstanding clause
• constitutional scholar
• judicial activism
• Charter values

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Queen’s University, Ottawa

Books & works: Charter of Rights

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