Judicial overreach
Re: Slow-motion coup: The Supreme Court’s Trinity Western ruling is a cruel joke on all Canadians, June 30 The recent Supreme Court decision allowing the Law Society of Upper Canada to refuse applicants from Trinity Western University is a disappointment in judicial overreach. First, the LSUC does not actually accredit out-of-province law schools but recognizes candidates based on educational attainment, good character, and so on. No deficiencies were asserted or found. In the court’s attempt to balance rights it could not be shown how TWU’s community covenant diminishes opportunity or affronts the public interest given the school is private, new, and does not rely on public funds. As we reconcile the contradiction that the “offending behaviour” is still permitted under the Charter, the students seek only to live by their religious beliefs, unbothered, and bothering no one. Jeff Stephan, Toronto It will be most interesting to see how Canada’s progressively activist Supreme Court eventually rules on the issue of the federal Liberal government requiring recipients of summer grant money to click a box accepting their progressive ideology in light of this Trinity Western decision. The government now has precedent to sit back and argue such a requirement is in keeping with “Charter values.”
Personally, even though I vehemently disagree with its right to do so, I don’t think it would be wrong based on Canada’s Supreme Court judges and their application of Charter values. The genie is out of the bottle and it’s going to require a complete overhaul of the current Supremes to put him back. Gordon J. Akum, Toronto