Federal intervention
Re: Good reasons to stay out of Bill 62. National Post Editorial, Oct. 28
Your good reasons for the federal government to stay out of Quebec’s Bill 62 deserve to be challenged. First, Bill 62 is an affront to Canada’s constitution.
All governments have an obligation to defend the Constitution from abuse which is why it was entirely appropriate for Ontario to pass a resolution condemning the action of Quebec’s Legislative Assembly.
The federal government has greater powers than provinces do to defend the Constitution and it should use them. Parliament should act by making it a criminal offence for any government to pass unconstitutional legislation without first having asked the federal government to refer the matter to the Supreme Court.
We must put an end to what has become rather trendy of late, which is passing repugnant legislation in the hope that the affected minorities will be too poor, too busy, or too cowed to contest it. Patrick Cowan, Toronto
The prime minister’s first reaction to Bill 62 was clearly taken from his father’s playbook when in 1977 prominent Quebec anglophones beseeched him to use federal powers of disallowance to invalidate Bill 101.
It was not the federal government’s job to strike down provincial legislation, was Pierre Trudeau’s position. As a constitutional lawyer, he knew that the powers on the books had arguably withered on the grapevine, or as the scholars say, fallen into desuetude.
As a politician he knew that it wasn’t the time to spend political capital on the file.
May the wisdom of the father be visited on the son. Howard Greenfield, Montreal, Que.